


Incoming

by EnidEarthling



Category: New Amsterdam (TV 2018)
Genre: Assault, Drama, Eventual Romance, Eventual fighting, F/M, Fighting in the Emergency Room, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Protective Max, hospital drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29591466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnidEarthling/pseuds/EnidEarthling
Summary: When the New Amsterdam team treats one of their own it forces Max to come to terms with his feelings for Helen, but it might just be too late.
Relationships: Max Goodwin & Helen Sharpe, Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe
Comments: 30
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Implied Sexual Assault in this chapter. Apologies if anyone does not want to read - but I promise a strong female character and an examination of sex assault treatment in hospitals (and well as, you know, romance and love and all the other good stuff)!
> 
> Comment if you like it or if you have ideas/suggestions. I am open! And thanks :)

“Incoming!”

The voice boomed throughout the New Amsterdam ED shattering the momentary calm Dr. Lauren Bloom had been enjoying with her subpar coffee. The doctor tossed the half-full cup in the closest trash can and strode to the approaching paramedics.

“White male, approximately 30 years old, no identification. Found unresponsive about four blocks from here. Laceration on the forehead and major trauma to his left eye.” 

“Casey, I need you over here!” Bloom shouted, before coming to rest next to the gurney.

The paramedic continued. “He regained consciousness in the ambulance, but hasn't been able to explain his injuries.” 

"Sir, can you tell me what happened to your eye?" Bloom asked as she snapped a blue latex glove into place over her right hand. She reached over the patient and partially removed the wad of gauze covering his eye injury: inflamed skin, blood, dark bruising. “Move him to Trauma One and Casey, page Dr. Shin.”

As the gurney wheeled past her, the man moaned in pain. “And let's irrigate the laceration on his forehead and stitch it up before we get a scan.”

Casey was already on the move, but Bloom was sure he’d heard her - he always did. She followed behind her new patient, into Trauma One, and the doors swung closed behind her. 

“He might have been attacked,” one of the paramedics suggested.

“He might have been anything,” Bloom sarcastically replied. “Where exactly did you find him?”

“Out near East 37th.”

“Okay, so maybe he slipped and fell," Bloom mused.

Casey entered the room, the tools for cleaning the wound in his hands. The cut on the man’s forehead wasn’t nearly as concerning as his eye injury, but Bloom wondered which came first. Had he injured his eye and then fallen down, unable to properly see? Or had he cut himself and become disoriented, causing a fall that led to eye penetration? Both her scenarios involved falling - accidents - until she took a closer look at the man’s hands. “Defensive wounds.”

Both paramedics nodded, but only one spoke. “There’s been a rash of attacks just a few blocks further north, but they’ve been mostly women.”

“Why haven’t I heard about this?” Bloom asked as she took one of the man’s hands in her own. The knuckles were slightly bruised, but more worrisome were the cuts along the top. To her trained eye they looked like fingernail gouges.

“You know how it is. Women don’t always come forward with attacks.”

Bloom spun on her heels, dropping the man’s hand to look the paramedic team head on. “Then how do you know about it?”

One shook his head, the other sighed. “That’s our beat, our people, Doc. We know when this shit goes down.”

With that, the paramedics backed out the swinging doors, taking their now empty gurney with them.

Bloomed huffed. “Where the hell is Dr. Shin?” 

**********

“Adele, have you seen Dr. Sharpe this morning?”

Max Goodwin stepped off the elevator, Luna strapped securely to his chest. He fell into place next to the motorized scooter of his assistant and the two moved swiftly down the hallway.

“Well, let me see. After rearranging your schedule for the third day in a row to ensure you didn’t have to sit with the board--”

Max interrupted with a _thank you_.

“--and then going over a handful of media requests for statements in between, you know, bouts of dying, no, I haven't seen her.”

Max stopped. “Wait. Media requests? Why?”

“Something about Ms. Brantley receiving a humanitarian award at the behest of the board and you being the keynote speaker.”

“I most certainly did not agree to that.” Max protested.

“Are you sure? You do sign a lot of paperwork without reading it.”

Max half-smiled, his head cocked playfully to the side. “Alright, yes, I do. But you usually ask people that kind of thing in person, right? And the board hasn’t…” Max’s words trailed as the realization suddenly hit him.

“There it is.” Adele chuckled. Her scooter whirred back to life and she began moving down the hallway once again, Max hot on her trail.

“Okay, I see what happened here.”

“Even Luna can see what happened here.” Adele joked. “You put off the board when all they wanted to do was ask a favour and now your attendance at this thing is in the press so you can’t say no. I mean, to be honest, that’s exactly the kind of move you would pull. In fact, it is a move you have pulled.”

“You know, when I gave you this job I thought it would be more pretending to be my assistant and less actually being… well, being my assistant.”

“What can I say? This job has given me a new lease on life.”

“Really?”

Adele heartily laughed. “No, of course not.” Her scooter picked up speed and she zoomed over the skyway leaving Max and his daughter in her dust.

“Max, have you seen Dr. Sharpe?” Dr. Kapoor asked and he and Dr. Agnes Kao passed by. “We have a patient presenting with bruising, fatigue, and acute swelling of the lower ligaments.”

“Bone cancer?” Max questioned.

“I don't know yet. Wanted Dr. Sharpe to weigh in, but I cannot find her.”

Max nodded in reply, then headed toward the in-hospital daycare not sure what to make of Helen Sharpe’s tardiness. _It’s only 9AM,_ he told himself. _She’ll be here._ But the voice inside his head would not quiet itself, even after Luna had been tucked safely into the arms of a daycare worker and he had dropped his bag inside his office, because Helen was never, ever late.

**********

“It's obvious the injury to his eye was caused by insertion.” Dr. Shin and Dr. Bloom stood at the doorway to Trauma One, his examination of the patient over.

“Yeah, no kidding. I can see that now. But insertion of what?”

Shin shrugged. “Given the defensive wounds on his hands, I'd say your paramedic friends were right. He was probably attacked.”

“It would explain the whole no wallet thing,” Casey added as he walked by.

“But without knowing the cause for sure…” Shin began, but Bloom cut him off.

“Oh, no.” Bloom protested. “You are not leaving him in my ED.”

Shin chuckled. “There's nothing to be done at the moment. The swelling is too severe. But his eye’s in there and when he feels a bit better I’ll take a closer look.”

“Hey, Lauren, have you seen Helen?”

Max was walking in from the outer bay area, Shin’s back to him. Everyone in scrubs looks the same from behind - _surely they must,_ he told himself - or he never would have asked where Helen was in front of her new, maybe, kind of, probably boyfriend. 

As Shin turned to face the medical director, Max’s head swirled with possibilities: Is she at Shin’s apartment, eating a meticulously laid out breakfast in bed? Is she at her own apartment, hastily getting ready after having spent the night with Shin and not wanting to come to work wearing the same pencil skirt and blouse combo two days in a row? Is she avoiding him, avoiding New Amsterdam for some slight he was too busy to see? Is she--

“I haven’t seen her,” Bloom replied, oblivious to Max’s internal spiralling. “But I could really use a consult on this trauma case.”

Shin scoffed. “Really?”

“Yep!” Bloom shot back.

“Um, what do we got?” Max asked.

“Male in his 30s with a severe penetration wound to his left eye. He can't even open it.”

“And Dr. Shin’s going to operate?” Max wondered aloud. 

“Operate on what? We don't yet know what caused the injury, but right now I'm not comfortable slicing into a mass of flesh just to see,” Shin told them. “We wait for him to heal a bit or we wait for him to stop moaning and start talking.”

Max’s eyes widened. “He’s responsive, but not talking?”

“We think he might have been attacked. He might not want to tell us what happened.” Bloom stated. 

“Then we wait.” Max replied matter-of-factly.

“Max, I can't have this guy hanging around in my ED until he decides to speak. His head wound is fine, the scans were normal.”

“Those scans, by the way, also didn't show anything lodged in his socket.” Shin offered. Bloom smirked in return.

Max nodded to Shin. “He’s right. There's nothing to operate on yet. Move him up a floor to free up Trauma One... and Shin, he's your patient now.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm a trauma surgeon. There's no surgery, so this is not my patient.” Shin protested.

Bloom pressed her iPad into Shin’s hands. “And I'm head of the ED and he's leaving the ED, so not my patient either.” 

“Incoming!” The voice pierced what little privacy the three doctors were sharing and Bloom happily took her cue to leave.

“Casey,” Max called out. “Let’s get this guy outta here.”

“You got it,” Casey replied.

Max turned around, content in the knowledge that their patient would be safe in Shin’s hands whether Shin liked it or not, but the surgeon stopped him.

“Hey, Max.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Not that you asked, but I haven't seen Helen either. Not since last night.”

**********

Iggy Frome sat reading a copy of Golding’s _Lord of the Flies_ on a bench in the New Amsterdam south courtyard, his lunch of kale salad beside him still uneaten.

“Iggy!” Max shouted from his place near the doors.

“Max!” Iggy called back, happy for the distraction. “What brings you to my classroom today?”

“Classroom?” Max asked as he pushed the lunch container closer to his friend and filled the remaining bench space.

Iggy flashed him a view of the book’s cover and smiled. “It’s junior high all over, except this time I feel even worse for Piggy.” Iggy pressed at his own belly, attempting to be playful, but Max read the look of disgust on his friend’s face.

“You know, Iggy, there's nothing wrong with--”

“I know. I know,” Iggy cut him off with a sigh. “Martin keeps telling me I’m beautiful and I want to believe him, but… God, Max, it's hard to tell other people how to solve their problems when I can't solve my own.”

“Yeah, I hear that.” Max said, before suddenly standing back up as if compelled to leave.

Iggy reached out for Max's arm. “Wait a minute. What was that? Are you just stopping by each department head for three seconds of conversation and then bolting?”

Max chuckled weakly. “It's my new policy. Micro-conversations.”

“Well, my friend, it sucks. I vent to you, then you to me. It's kind of our thing.” Iggy reminded him, pulling on his arm and forcing Max back down.

“No, our thing is venting about the state of medicine in this country and then doing something about it.”

“Okay, well, I still haven't heard any venting from your side of the bench.”

“That's because it's not about healthcare.”

“Even better. _Lord of the Flies_ and self-worth issues aren’t really about healthcare either.” Iggy neatly placed the book back in his satchel bag and tossed the kale salad in the trash beside them. Max raised an eyebrow. “What? I was never going to eat that. Tastes like cardboard.”

“I can't find Helen,” Max blurted out. “She didn't call in. She's just not here. And before you ask if I called - yes, of course I did. Probably too many times. And so I asked around and no one has seen her, not even Shin. Although he saw her last night, so that’s a thing I have to think about now, but--”

“Why is that a thing?”

“Huh?”

“Shin and Helen? Why is that a thing you have to think about?”

Max raised his eyebrow yet again and Iggy snorted. “Really? Shin and Helen? I mean, sure, he's gorgeous and a superstar in his field with tons of professional accolades but--”

“But he's a little self-involved,” Max offered.

Iggy laughed. “He's a doctor, Max. We’re all a little self-involved.”

“I'm not,” Max declared. 

“Max, buddy, I think it's my turn to raise an eyebrow.”

They sat for a moment on the bench, the sounds of New York filling the silence - nearby traffic, conversations in the courtyard, wind whistling through the tree above them.

“Are you worried they’re sleeping together?” Iggy finally asked.

Max sighed. “Well, yeah, Iggy, I am now.”

“Forgive me for my bluntness here, but I was fairly sure you told me you weren't ready to move on just yet. And I was fairly certain you told that to Helen too.”

Max shook his head from side to side. “No. No. I never said that to her.”

“But you also didn't kiss her when you had the chance.”

“What the--” 

“Relax. Lauren told me.”

“So Sharpe told her.”

Iggy lurched sideways, his shoulder bumping with Max’s merrily. “It's what friends do.”

“I gotta get back to work.” Max stood up. “But, hey, why are you reading the _Lord of the Flies_?”

“Oh, one of my patients keeps referencing it.”

“So, turns out that book and the kale salad are about healthcare,” Max told him, before taking a large step to the trash can. There on the top was Iggy’s lunch securely packed inside a square plastic take-out container. Max fished the meal out and wiped off the bottom of the container. He placed it back on the bench beside Iggy before walking away with a smile.

Iggy called after him, “Just so you know, it's not any more appetizing when it smells like garbage.”

**********

“Incoming!”

Dr. Bloom placed the iPad she was reading on the nurses’ station counter before grabbing a fresh pair of latex gloves from the box. “What have you got?”

“It’s Dr. Sharpe!” The paramedic’s voice cracked as the words reverberated throughout the ED.

Bloom rushed to the gurney, her honey-tinted brown hair falling in her face. She blew an errant strand out of her eyes and leaned over her friend. “Helen? Helen, can you hear me?”

“She's unresponsive,” the paramedic told her. 

“What happened?” Casey asked, finding his spot on the opposite side of the gurney.

“She was found six blocks from here, unconscious in an alley. Multiple lacerations of the face and hands, contusion of the head, swelling of the left wrist - possible break, and bruising of the upper thighs.”

Bloom grabbed the edge of the gurney and stopped their swift movement toward Trauma One. “Her upper thighs?” She asked, almost in a whisper. The paramedic closest to her only nodded in reply. Bloom swallowed hard - there was no time to do anything but act, but help. “Um, okay. Okay. Casey, get me a sexual assault kit and page Max.” 

Casey stood still for a moment, his hands also fiercely gripping the gurney, his face flush.

“Now, Casey!” Bloom shouted, and her best nurse snapped back to the present before rushing out of sight. “Trauma One!”

Bloom and the two paramedics quickly moved Helen’s gurney into the trauma room, the doors crashing open as they did. “Dammit!” Bloom shouted. The patient from earlier, the man with the eye injury, was still lying on a bed in Trauma One. “Casey!”

The doors burst open again behind her, and Casey entered the room. “I know. I know.” He told Dr. Bloom, before rushing to the first bed and pushing it aside, the wheels squeaking as it moved. “They didn't have a space for him upstairs and Dr. Shin’s in another surgery.”

“Yeah, okay. Just make sure we have room.” 

Casey finished situating the first bed and firmly pressed its lock to ensure the wheels stayed in place. “We need another bed in here!” He called out and within seconds, a team of nurses entered the room with a second bed.

“On my count,” Bloom instructed. “One, two, three.”

The team easily lifted Helen from the gurney to the bed before the paramedics backed away. Bloom lifted the lids of Helen’s eyes one by one; the whites were dotted with blood. 

“Where did you say you found her?” Bloom asked, but the paramedics had already left. “What the-- Casey, go after them. I want to know exactly where she was.” Casey complied, rushing from the room.

“She's cold,” one of Bloom’s nurses said, her hand on Helen’s.

“And she's wearing the same clothes she was yesterday,” Bloom finished.

“She was out all night in that alley?” The nurse asked. 

Bloom nodded, stepping back from her friend. She pulled a hair tie from the front pocket of her white lab coat and prepared to pull her hair back, but the tie fell to the floor. Sighing, Bloom crouched down, her face coming level with Helen’s hands - the nails were chipped and broken. Bloom gasped.

“Where the hell is Max?”

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Again, this story talks about assault, sexual and otherwise. I'm sorry if this is hurtful to anyone, but I think its a topic the show has yet to cover... and maybe they should. 
> 
> Please comment if you like it (or if you think I am not getting it right).  
> The comments are what let me know I should keep writing.

Dr. Max Goodwin ran across New Amsterdam’s skyway dodging doctors, patients and workers, weaving around them as if he were in an obstacle course. He clipped the arms of a passing intern and her paperwork flew into the air like confetti, but Max couldn't stop to help - or even say sorry. He was already over the skyway and around the corner headed to the stairs. His heart was beating rapidly, fear coursing through his veins.

As he jumped the last few steps to the first floor, Max shot through the metal door, a clank ringing out like a gunshot. Nurses standing just outside the ED gasped, but quickly composed themselves as Max rounded another corner into Lauren Bloom’s domain.

“Dr. Goodwin,” Casey called from the door outside Trauma One, his arm waving the physician over.

Max rushed into the room, his breathing staggered and his forehead coated in a thin sheen of sweat. “What happened?” He asked, the panting practically strangling his voice.

Bloom looked up from her patient, Dr. Helen Sharpe, to reply, “She was attacked sometime last night. Found unresponsive in--”

“Last night?” Max asked, already at Helen’s side.

“Look, she’s breathing, but it's laboured. I don't see any severe external injuries but she’s presenting with abdominal bruising, so there could be internal bleeding.”

“CT scan?”

“Yeah, we’re doing it. First we gotta get her temperature up.”

Max reached out and touched Helen’s exposed arm. “She's freezing.”

“Like I said, she was out all night.”

“Out where?” Max questioned, his hand sliding down Helen’s arm and coming to rest inside her own. He gripped her cold, unmoving fingers and squeezed as if to tell her he was there.

“Paramedics told me that a group of kids on their way to school found her in an alley they cut through,” Casey offered, positioning another heating pad under the sheet near Helen’s legs.

“Okay, monitor her vitals and get me that CT.” Bloom told Casey and he nodded in reply. “Max, step out with me.”

“No!” Max replied, his voice still strained, yet nearly a shout. He knew tears would come, but he was trying to keep hold of himself, keep a veil of authority. “I'm staying right here.”

“Max, I need to speak with you… out there.” Bloom took Max by the upper arm and forcefully tugged, but Max held his ground. “Please.”

Max turned toward Bloom, and he could see the look in her eye - a look he knew all too well. It was the look doctors wore when they needed to speak about a terrible diagnosis, a life-altering or life-ending aliment away from the patient. And even though Max needed to know what was happening, he could not peel himself from Helen’s side. 

After the ambulance had crashed nearly one year before, Max had left Georgia’s side, never saying goodbye, and the next time he saw her she was dead on the operating table. He vowed the moment his cell phone beeped with the message that his favourite doctor, his best friend was in the ED he wouldn’t leave her - not for an instant. Max ripped his arm from Bloom’s grasp and turned his back to her, focusing all his attention on the patient.

Max looked her over, one hand still firmly gripped in Helen’s, the other hurriedly moving over her body to help him better examine her wounds. “I want a full neurological workup. She has a contusion on her head; it could explain her inability to wake up. And I want to get these clothes off her. She's been out all night; there was a mist this morning and she’s wet. Let’s grab a gown and--” as Max threw back the sheet covering Helen’s legs he knew instantly what Bloom had wanted to tell him.

**********

14 HOURS EARLIER

“So, I’m thinking of initiating a mobile vaccination clinic that we can send to the community centers in the area, make sure we help educate all these anti-vaxxer parents and provide them with a safe space to ask questions and get their kids vaccinated.”

Max was standing in the doorway to Helen Sharpe’s office, a binder in his hand. Helen was pulling her long beige coat over a black on black pencil skirt and blouse combination, her gold hoop earrings sparkling against the overhead lights as she tilted her head back to laugh.

“Funny, because that sounds like my idea. And, oh, look, that's my proposal.”

Max held the binder up and twisted it in his hand in mock examination. “What, this? No, this is my collection of takeout menus.”

Helen smiled. “Okay, so what is it going to be tonight: Italian or Chinese?”

“I don't know. What are you in the mood for?”

“Are we having a laugh or are you asking me to dinner?” Helen asked, her voice high and playful, but Max knew they were treading uncharted waters.

They had almost kissed in that very office just a month before, and no matter how much he wanted to talk about it there never seemed to be the perfect time. He had no idea how to articulate how much she meant to him, how he couldn't imagine his life without her. He had no idea how to tell her he had wanted to kiss her, more than anything, but it would have been a mistake. 

Kissing Alice had been a mistake, too. He hadn’t been ready for that, truly ready to let Georgia go - but Alice, as beautiful and wonderful as she was, simply couldn't compare to Helen Sharpe. Alice exiting his life hurt, but losing Sharpe would kill. They had almost kissed in that very office just a month before and Max had been thinking about it every second since.

Helen weakly chuckled before telling him, “I should go.” She was refusing to wait any longer for a reply to her earlier question. As she tightly tied the belt of her coat and grabbed her bag, Max stepped into the office fully and closed the door behind him.

“What if I said I didn't know the right answer?”

Helen tilted her head to the side, trying to read him, not sure what he meant. “Max, there is no right answer.”

“What if I told you dinner sounds wonderful… and that there's no one I would rather have it with than you. Well, and, Luna. What if I said that?”

“Are you saying that?” She asked, placing her bag on the edge of the desk.

Max shook his head. “I don't know.”

Helen reached out to take Max’s hand, but at the last second stopped herself. Max watched as she instead placed her hands inside the large pockets of her designer coat. “I think you know how I feel about…” She found his blue eyes and latched on, staring at him unwaveringly. Max held her gaze and smiled. “...dinner,” she finally said. “You know how I feel about dinner, but perhaps we should call it a night.”

_Dammit,_ Max thought. _Is this the moment?_ He had been thinking that every day since their almost-kiss. Each time they passed each other in the hallway he wondered: _do I tell her now?_ Each time they found themselves in close proximity he thought: _should I ask her out?_ Each time they were alone together in their respective offices, just the two of them, he mused: _is this the moment I kiss her?_

But deep down he knew he still wasn't ready. Iggy had continually jested him about dating, but the therapist had been careful never to push. Grief was different for everyone, and Max’s grief was profound. Yes, the medical director was still working, he was still raising his daughter, and he never missed a patient consult or a department head meeting. But he had also spent months talking to his deceased wife, sprinkling their bed in her perfume, and crying himself to sleep while holding her photograph. Those were things he never told Iggy, never told anyone, and yet he was afraid everyone at New Amsterdam could tell. 

_It’s not the moment,_ he told himself. _It can't be_.

When he’d finally shaken himself from his thoughts, Helen had passed by him, her hand on the door to the office. “Goodnight, Max.”

“How are you and Dr. Shin?” Max suddenly asked, without even realizing the words had slipped from his mouth.

“Me and Dr. Shin?” Helen inquired, her eyebrow slightly raised.

Max ran his hand over his beard, before settling backward on her desk, resting himself there. He was trying to look casual, but internally he was shaking.

“I hear things.”

“What kind of things?” Helen asked. She was standing with her back to the door, also resting. It was as if Max’s question had knocked them both off balance.

“Um, you know, just things.”

“How are you and Alice?” Helen questioned. “That is her name, isn't it?”

Max was taken aback. He hadn't really told Helen about Alice. Yes, she knew Alice existed, but he wasn't aware she knew they had dated - or that they had stopped.

“I'm sorry,” Helen suddenly said. “That's none of my business.”

“No, no. It's okay. I probably should have told you anyway. You burden me, I burden you, right?”

“Was it a burden?”

Max scoffed. “Sorry, that's not what I meant. I just meant…” he sighed, not knowing how to explain that being with Alice was great while it lasted. Those initial dates felt normal and that normalcy helped him forget about Georgia. But, in reality, he didn't want to forget about his late wife - not ever. “I just meant we tell each other everything.”

“No, Max, we don't. Because you’re seeing a woman and I'm seeing Shin and we didn't tell each other.”

“Actually, Alice and I broke up a while back.”

Helen released herself from the door, standing taller, as if trying to regain some self control. “Really?”

“But you and Shin, huh? That’s-- that’s… great, Helen.”

“Is it?” she asked. Her voice was so low, Max almost didn't hear her - and he certainly had no idea how to reply.

Helen smiled, shaking off the awkwardness. “Like I said, I should go.”

She opened the door to her own office, stepped out and closed it behind her. Max wondered if she could hear him sighing from out in the hall.

**********

“We’re doing the sex assault kit, Max, but there's more,” Bloom told him. They were standing in the tiny ED staff lounge, the smell of stale coffee and the hum from the decade’s old fridge filling the room. 

“How can there be more?” Max asked. He was standing with his arms crossed just inside the lounge, his body rigid and unmoving. It was as if he was holding himself in place for fear that if he didn’t he would explode.

Bloom stepped forward, closing the door to the small space behind them. “Remember the eye injury from this morning?”

“The guy bunking in the corner of Trauma One? Yeah, and I told Casey to get him outta here.”

“And we tried, but Shin was in surgery and the beds are full upstairs,” Bloom replied. “But that’s not the-- that’s not--”

Max groaned, his patience for Bloom growing thin. “Can we talk about that later? I need to get back in there.”

“The man came in with defensive wounds on his hands… and Helen’s fingernails are broken.”

Max uncrossed his arms. “What are you saying?”

“Both patients were cold, probably both out all night, found within blocks of each other.”

“Lauren…”

“Look, you saw the bruises on Helen’s thighs. Whoever did this to her had big hands, and there’s a lot of blood on Helen’s right thumb and--”

“That man has a left eye injury,” Max said, completing Bloom’s sentence.

“Yeah. So, I'm thinking maybe he attacked her last night. She fought back, got him good. Maybe he tried to stagger home or something and didn't make it, you know.”

Max strode forward quickly, trying to barrel past Bloom, but she held her ground.

“Whoa, Max! No! Stop!” Bloom held her hands out, pressing them against her boss’ chest. “Casey’s already called the police and he’s moving the patient but I need you to--”

Max grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to the left. Bloom hit the edge of the fridge and almost lost her footing, catching herself on a small wooden table. Max darted from the room, ignoring any injury he may have caused. Taking the few steps to Trauma One he peered inside - a team of nurses were working on heating Helen, but the first patient was gone. Quickly scanning his surroundings, Max saw Casey pushing a bed just out of view and he chased after it, rage bubbling under his skin.

“Hey!” Max called out, and Casey looked over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of the medical director, but he did not stop. “Casey! Wait!”

Max knew the nurse was aware of everything Bloom had told him and was trying to get their patient to safety - the man who attacked Helen to safety. But it was too late; Max was already on them, his hand on the edge of the wheeled bed, yanking it back.

“Dr. Goodwin--” Casey began, but Max couldn't be stopped.

He turned the bed sideways and stood above the man, his eye still covered in gauze. “Did you do that to her?” Max screamed. “Did you?”

The man only moaned in response. He had yet to speak since arriving in the ED and Max’s accusations did little to spur a vocal reply. 

Max shook the edge of the bed and it rocked under his considerable strength. The man groaned loudly as his body flopped under the sheet. “Did you do that to her?” He shouted, his voice not only growing in volume, but in fury.

Casey reached out and grabbed Max’s upper arm, but Max quickly twisted away. He rocked the bed again and the patient winced - it was obvious he was in pain, and it was obvious Max did not care. 

“If I find out that you--” Max began, but Casey grabbed him again, this time around the waist, pulling the medical director back. Max squirmed in the arms of the nurse, reaching out for the patient, his as if to strike him.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Iggy Frome yelled as he ran down the corridor toward the commotion. “Max! Stop!”

But Max did not listen. With one hand outside Casey’s reach, Max thrust forward toward the patient. He wasn’t sure what he would do: hit the man, punch him, maybe press his own thumb into the already red and inflamed wound the gauze now barely covered. He didn't get the chance - Iggy reached out and grabbed Max’s wrist and pulled him away.

As Max raged, screaming at the man, two female nurses slipped past the three men and grabbed the bed. The hurriedly wheeled it down the hall. Once it turned the corner to the elevator bank, Casey loosened his hold on Max and the doctor spun away.

“Max, come on, buddy. Calm down. Just calm down.” Iggy still had his hand on Max’s wrist. “I need you to calm down.”

Max inhaled deeply and the tears came - he couldn't stop them. They ran briskly down his cheeks for a full minute as Max heaved, his breathing erratic.

“Just take it easy, Max. You got this,” Iggy told him, the hand on Max’s wrist now on his back, rubbing in comforting circles.

Casey shared a look with Iggy, silently asking if it was alright to step away, and Iggy nodded in the affirmative. The nurse backed off, giving Max some much needed space.

“Let’s just take a seat, okay, buddy?”

Max shook his head from side to side. “I can't. I have to get back in there. I have to get back to Helen.”

“Lauren’s with her, Max.” Iggy told him. “Lauren’s got everything under control.”

“No. I have to get back.” Max pulled away from Iggy, but Casey blocked his path back into the ED.

“We have to calm down out here, okay?” Iggy said, his voice steady and low. “We have to--”

“I just got paged. What happened?” Dr. Cassian Shin was running down the hall toward the trio, his pager in his hands.

“It's Helen,” Casey replied. “She was--” Before the nurse could finish his sentence, Max lunged forward and tackled the new trauma surgeon to the hospital floor.

“Max!” Iggy screamed, but there was no stopping it.

A full blown fight was happening just outside the New Amsterdam ED.

  
  
  


  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: A little less talk about assault here, but still present. Apologies if that gets to anyone.  
> Still a lot of character growth though (I hope).
> 
> Please comment if you are reading this... not sure anyone is.  
> Thanks so much.

10:23 PM, THURSDAY

Dr. Helen Sharpe stepped out of New Amsterdam and onto the sidewalk, her black pumps clicking on the concrete. She sighed heavily remembering she’d forgotten to call her car service. The encounter with Max had left her feeling more than flustered - it had left her defeated. A month before, after they had almost kissed, Helen told Lauren Bloom she was letting go. Max wasn’t ready and she refused to push him. He knew how she felt, how everything she did was for him. She told Bloom it was now up to him. The first move - if there was a move to be made at all - had to be made by him.

Standing outside the hospital, the night air curling itself through her thick black hair, Helen wondered if what had just happened in her office was that move. _Had he asked me to dinner, really?_

Worrying about her relationship with Max had become a full-time job, one she no longer had the strength to fulfill. And yet, each time Max entered her office her heart skipped a beat. Each time Max smiled at her across the table at a meeting Helen couldn't help but smile back. And each time she found herself alone with him, really alone, she was sure she could feel the electricity that coursed between them. She was sure their connection wasn't just in her imagination.

But nothing ever happened. Nothing.

_He's not ready,_ she reminded herself. _He's just not ready._

Looking up at the sky, Helen wondered if it was going to rain. It had the previous night, and she’d used it as an excuse to cancel a date with Dr. Shin. He’d laughed, never having been rejected due to Mother Nature, but Helen convinced him she was already at home, already in her pajamas, already sipping on her ginger tea and flipping the pages of _New Scientist_ \- she just wasn’t in the mood to venture out for a coffee. She could hear the disappointment in his voice over the phone, but he took a _rain check._ Helen had laughed at his joke, but immediately regretted it because it felt like something Max would say, not Shin. 

The air was crisp, though, no sign of rain now. Helen fished her cell phone out of her bag and scrolled to the number for her car service, but then decided against it. The night was clear, yet her head was swimming in darkness and doubt. Maybe a walk would do her some good.

**********

1:06 PM, FRIDAY

“Max!” Iggy Frome shouted from just over Max Goodwin’s right shoulder. He had been trying to separate the pair of doctors wrestling on the tile floor just outside the ED, but the task was nearly impossible. 

Cassian Shin was under the medical director, using his forearms to block blows Max was volleying toward his face. One, two, three attempted punches, each deflected. When the fourth reared back, Max’s elbow caught Iggy on the chin and the therapist staggered backward into the waiting arms of a nurse. Shin moved hurriedly, pushing back on Max to get to Iggy - to try to help - but by dropping his arms he left his face vulnerable and Max took another swing, this one connecting with Shin’s jaw.

Shin winced and groaned, before pushing back hard, flipping Max onto his back. Jumping on top of him, anger took over and he returned in kind a blow on Max’s face.

As the two men continued their assault on one another, the hallway filled with nurses and staff. Iggy carried on with yelling, imploring them to stop, but he was also holding his wounded chin, already feeling the lump forming.

“What the hell is going on here?” Karen Brantley screamed as she pushed her way through the crowd, her eyes falling on two of her best doctors engaged in a fight. “Stop this at once!”

Her words propelled the male nurses forward, some pulling Shin off Max, some pulling Max away. The men were panting, their muscles flexing, their veins popping. They were struggling against their human restraints, but Brantley stepped between them hoping her presence would keep them compliant.

“This ends now!” She yelled. “Max to your office. Dr. Shin to yours.”

“I have to--” Max began to object.

“You're going to your office!”

Max jerked himself away from the nurses surrounding him and stormed down the hall toward the elevators. 

“Dr. Frome, please accompany Dr. Goodwin,” Brantley said.

“Uh, I’d love to, but I think I have to get some ice on this--”

“Dr. Frome, we can get you ice. Accompany Dr. Goodwin… please.”

Iggy nodded before hurrying after Max, his steps a little staggered.

“Dr. Shin, why are you still in this hallway?” Brantley questioned, her attention now focused solely on the new trauma surgeon.

Shin opened his mouth to explain. Maybe he would tell her that he was paged to come to the ED; maybe he would tell her that Max was the aggressor; maybe he would tell her that they both used the same set of elevators and if they left at the same time they would only return to fighting once out of her sight line. Instead he only sighed and turned away, in the opposite direction Max had gone, resigning himself to taking the stairs.

“Where is she?” Brantley finally asked, once the situation seemed relatively under control.

**********

“I'm really sorry about that, by the way,” Max said, gesturing to Iggy’s injury. Iggy was seated on the couch in Max’s office, the one partially covered in documents Adele and Brantley knew Max would never read. Max was pacing the small space between Iggy and the desk, ignoring the injury to his jaw and the small bruise that was creeping into place.

“This?” Iggy asked playfully, removing the ice pack Gladys had fetched for him from the large lump forming under his beard. “Nah, this is nothing. I’ll be fine. How ‘bout you?”

Max sighed. “Is that a real question? Of course I won't be fine. Helen is in the ED alone right now and--”

“We’ve been through this, Max. She's not alone. Lauren is with her. I bet Kapoor is with her now too. She’s in good hands… excellent hands.”

“But not my hands,” Max replied softly.

Iggy didn't respond - just let the thought sit between them like a thick fog.

“I wasn't there for Georgia when--”

“Hey, this is not like Georgia, buddy. You know that.”

Max sighed again, this time with his whole body, as if trying to exhale out his anxiety and guilt. But it wasn't working. He felt compelled to bolt from the office and run back to the ED, but Iggy assured him Brantley had put security outside his office door. It was one thing to have the police on their way to investigate Helen’s assault, it was another for them to find two doctors fighting just feet from her bed.

“She can't get better without me there,” Max finally said, leaning back on the edge of his desk, his head hung forward.

“Okay, well, let’s talk about why you feel that way.”

“Iggy, really?”

Iggy chuckled. “Is there something else you want to do, because I don't think either of us can leave this room - at least not without Brantley’s say so.”

“We’re being illegally detained.”

“Sure, maybe,” Iggy agreed. “But one of us tried to take Dr. Shin’s head off using his fists, so--”

Max looked up, clearing his throat. He gestured to the injury on his own jaw and raised an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh, and something tells me Shin defending himself against you isn't going to sway anyone in your favour, Max.”

Iggy took the ice pack off his face and set it on the table before him. “So, why don't we talk? You can tell me why you attacked a fellow doctor.”

“Their dating,” Max replied.

“So you said this morning, but I don't know what that has to do with--”

“He should have protected her against this.”

“Against what? Random violence?”

Max scoffed. “You know what I mean.”

“No, Max, I don't. This thing happened to Helen, to our friend, and it’s hard to comprehend, but--”

“How did you know?” Max interjected. “I mean, how did you know she was in the ED?”

Max moved behind his desk and took a seat in his rarely used office chair - his whole body sinking into the fabric beneath him.

“Lauren emailed me her file.”

“So, Bloom’s just telling everyone Helen’s personal business.”

“I don't think--”

“She's just telling everyone what happened to Helen before Helen has a chance to… a chance to…” Max couldn't finish - he wasn't even sure what he wanted to say. There were issues of privacy in a hospital, issues when talking about victims of sexual assault. Max was worried not only that Bloom was violating those rules, but that she was violating Helen’s confidence as her friend.

“Lauren told me because I’m the psych consult. Everyone in the ED knows because they were there when Helen was brought in. Brantley was probably notified that her deputy medical director was in Trauma One and, well, the rest of New Amsterdam is sure to know now because you had a fit in the hallway.”

“A fit? Is that your medical opinion?”

Iggy smiled. “No, but I think we should reserve any judgment against Dr. Bloom when what happened between you and Shin is travelling throughout the hospital and bringing everyone down to the ED.”

“You're saying I broke Helen’s confidence.”

“I'm saying you're not thinking clearly, so maybe we wait before we say who is and isn’t doing right by her, okay?”

Max nodded, then leaned back in the chair fully, his head tilted toward the corked ceiling tiles. His mind wandered back to the previous night and he wondered if there was something he could have done to prevent the attack against Helen. He wondered if they had had dinner - Italian or Chinese - maybe she would have been alright. Maybe they would have spoken their truths over Bolognese or professed their mutual desire for one another over egg rolls. Maybe the night would have ended in a hug, a lingering look, an errant stand of hair tucked firmly behind her ear by his shaking hand. Maybe…

**********

10:28 PM, THURSDAY

One block from New Amsterdam and Helen was already regretting the decision to walk. Her black high heels weren’t great on the tiles in the hospital - why she thought they would hold up on the uneven concrete sidewalk she wasn't sure. Turning back to the warmth of the hospital, Helen spied Max running up the street toward her. Without thinking, her face formed a smile and from even a half-block away Max returned the gesture.

“What are you doing?” She asked him once he finally came to rest in front of her.

“What are _you_ doing?” 

“Um, I thought it was obvious."

Max cocked his head to the side. “Sure, but where’s your car?”

“I thought I’d walk.”

“Okay, well let me walk with you.”

Helen’s smile returned. “You don't have your jacket on. And you’re missing your child.”

“I know," he told her, patting himself down as if to confirm that Luna was indeed not strapped to his chest in her carrier. “Wait here and I can go get her. Or better yet, come back to the hospital and wait inside."

Max wrapped his arms around himself, his muscles peeking out from under the sleeves of his scrubs. He was trying to stay warm in the cool, night air - but Helen couldn't help staring at his form. When they first met, Max Goodwin was anything but attractive to her. She couldn’t stand that there was yet another male medical director, in a long line of failed male medical directors, while she was out travelling the world to bring money in for the hospital. Yes, Dr. Helen was important - she was one of a small handful of reasons New Amsterdam stayed afloat under Dean Fulton, and yet the previous medical directors didn't care. They didn't care about her public appearances and the fundraising she did, the same way they didn't care that she was no longer attending to patients. But Max cared... and then he grew on her. His smile, his warmth, his need to help everyone - it all grew on her. And a year later she found herself never wanting to be Dr. Helen again. She found herself attracted to the man who had helped her see the light, and she wondered why she hadn't realized how handsome he was sooner.

_What good would that have done?_ She told herself. _He was married then… he’s still married, isn’t he?_

"Max, it's late and I should go. I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

Max uncrossed his arms and reached out for her leather glove clad hand. "It's also dark and dangerous and--"

Helen squeezed his cold fingers and smiled. "Dangerous? I'm only going a few blocks."

Max shrugged. "But you live further away than that, I thought."

"I do, but--"

"You know, it's probably none of my business," Max said, letting go of her hand.

"Maybe not," Helen replied. "But just a few minutes ago you said we tell each other everything."

"Yeah, I did say that."

They stood on the sidewalk, the lights of New Amsterdam shining brightly behind Max casting a dim halo around his body.

"Why did you chase after me?" Helen finally asked, seeing the shiver creep over Max's arms and knowing he couldn't stay outside with her much longer.

Max half-smiled, the tell he showed just before revealing an awkward truth. Helen braced herself, not knowing if she wanted to hear what he had to say - not really.

“I feel as if we’re slipping away from each other, Helen. I feel like I’m losing you.”

  
  


**********

1:50 PM, FRIDAY

Max often thought about the night of the blizzard, the night he and Helen met Marlene. She had claimed to be a clairvoyant, and she had claimed she would die. But as Max sat in his office with Iggy Frome, both a little worse for wear, Max was certain Marlene was alive and well in her apartment just a few blocks away. 

But she had also claimed that Max would lose a woman he cared deeply for. She had said it wasn’t his wife - but he lost Georgia all the same. When he looked back on that night, he wondered if he had been losing Helen. That next morning, she had removed herself as Max’s doctor, their relationship became strained. But they eventually came back together, personally and professionally connecting once again. _Is this it?_ He thought. _Am I losing her now?_

“You okay?” Iggy asked. He was still sitting on the couch, but now his feet were propped up on the table before him. Their impromptu therapy session had come to nothing, and Iggy had backed down in defeat. But watching his friend rub his temples over and over, listening to the heavy huffing and groaning of frustration, Iggy couldn’t help himself, so he asked again, “Max, are you okay?”

“I'm not sure I ever told Helen that she saved my life,” Max whispered. “We’ve talked about it, I've thanked her, but I'm not sure if I ever really told her how much I-- how much she--” Max couldn't get the words out.

“She knows.”

“I think I have feelings…”

Iggy snorted. “Really? You don't say.”

Max peered at Iggy, his eyes awash in annoyance. 

“We all know you like Sharpe. I mean, you were just beating up her boyfriend.”

“That's not what was happening. Like I said--”

Iggy put his hand up, the visual cue to stop Max from repeating the lie they were both sure would come. “You told me. He should have protected her. But that’s not really his job, at least not the way you’re implying.”

“Then I should have.”

Leaning forward Iggy kicked his shoes off the table and sat up. “What do you mean?”

“I was with her last night.”

“This morning you told me Shin was with her.”

“I don't know. I guess I just assumed, but I think maybe I was the last one to see her before…”

Max rested his head in his hands and let the grief wash over him. He had gone through denial - trying to convince himself as he ran to the ED that his text message must have been wrong, Helen couldn't have been hurt. He had gone through anger - his hands wrapped around the bed rails, his knuckles white with tension; his fists flying through the air, pummeling Shin. He had skipped bargaining and depression - there just wasn't enough time to barter with whatever God people prayed to and then cry when it inevitably didn't work out. Now he was accepting the truth - that he was the reason Helen had been attacked. He was the reason the bad things happened.

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Still talking about assault here... trying to handle it respectfully, so if I am doing it wrong let me know.
> 
> Also, comments would be greatly appreciated.

The gasp was so loud that Dr. Bloom almost dropped her coffee cup. Thankfully, the liquid was cold - had it spilled onto her lap it would have been nothing more than an inconvenience. Instead, Bloom placed it on the windowsill next to her chair and leaned forward. She’d been sitting in that chair for over an hour, and her swift movement was followed by a heavy groan as her muscles strained.

“Hey you,” Bloom said, her voice lower than usual, calmer. 

Helen Sharpe’s eyes slowly moved about the room, taking in her new surroundings, but as the glass hospital doors came into view, her breathing quickened.

“It's okay, Helen. You're in New Amsterdam and you're okay.” Bloom winced as the last words escaped her lips. She knew that Helen was not okay; alive, yes - but not okay.

Helen moaned, bringing a hand to her stomach, the IV line tugging uncomfortably against her skin. While still unconscious, a CT scan had revealed there was no internal bleeding, but Bloom had watched the large purple bruise just above Helen’s belly button solidify into a shoe print - Adidas trainer, probable size 13. The police had surmised that while on the ground Helen had been stomped. Bloom was relieved Max Goodwin was still locked in his office when that bit of information made its way through the ED.

Helen moaned again followed by a gruff cough.

“Let me get you some water,” Bloom replied, but before she could turn away, Helen caught her hand. For a moment, the two women stared at one another. Bloom was anguished, and while she wanted to keep it from her friend, there was no hiding the sadness in her eyes. Medicine, the traditional, hands-on medicine that Bloom performed was over - the job of an ED doctor was done. 

As she told her therapy group in rehab, fear that friends would know what had become of her initially crippled her recovery. Once they saw her as an addict, could they ever see her as anything else? Yes, Floyd Reynolds’ visit had been the first catalyst towards change - his refusal to give up on her was confirmation that she shouldn't give up on herself - but standing next to Helen’s bed, Bloom recognized the same dismay she wore on her first day back at work. Bloom knew Helen was internally agonizing over whether her friends would forever see her a victim of sexual assault. All Bloom could do was hold Helen’s hand, gently squeeze it and smile. Not a smile of happiness, but one of understanding. All Bloom could do was be there as long as Helen would allow it.

Helen opened her mouth to say something, but the words did not come. She clenched her face in frustration, tears glistening the whites of her eyes.

“Do you need that water?” Bloom asked, still holding Helen’s hand.

Helen gently shook her head from side to side. As Bloom watched, Helen craned her neck, stretching her head backward into the pillow. She was revealing a wound Bloom was already aware of: a large red welt across her long neck. As the police had photographed Helen’s body - an action Bloom had strongly discouraged as it felt like a violation, but was done because detectives cautioned Helen might never wake up - the bruise on her neck was found to be raised, almost like rug burn. Those in the room - Bloom, Casey, and two sexual assault detectives - wondered what could have caused the injury, but a closer examination of Helen’s coat revealed it was missing its matching beige belt.

“Can you talk?” Bloom asked. “Does it hurt?”

Helen didn't reply.

**********

_ I have feelings... _

Max was lying on the floor of his office, just in front of the desk, his feet facing the door. As Iggy resumed his theorizing over why Max couldn’t - or wouldn’t - tell Helen how he felt about her, Max had taken up residence on the ground. Iggy assumed the medical director was mocking him, lying on a makeshift couch for his therapy session, but in reality Max needed the coolness of the tile to slow his quickening pulse. 

He had told Iggy he had “feelings” for Helen, and of course he did. She was his best friend, his closest confidante, his deputy, his saviour. He had feelings… deep feelings, but they hadn’t helped him move any faster or heal after his wife’s death any quicker.  _ Of course she started dating Shin,  _ he thought. She couldn't wait forever.  _ Had she even been waiting at all? _

“Max, you gotta help me here. There's a chunk of your story missing, buddy.”

Max crossed his legs, his hands resting on either side of his long, lean frame. “Like I said, we talked about dinner, she left, I followed… and then I didn't walk her home.”

“But she wasn’t going home, right?”

“I don't think so.”

“And that made you mad.”

Max scoffed. “No. I could never be mad at Helen.”

“Okay, maybe  _ mad  _ is the wrong word. But it made you think twice about walking with her or calling her a car.”

“You're doing it again, Iggy.” 

“Doing what?” Iggy asked. He was still sitting on the couch, where he’d been since they’d found themselves locked in the office. The lump on his chin had stopped growing; a golf ball sized wound under his salt and pepper beard was the extent of the damage he suffered during the fight - a fight they hadn’t really spoken about; a fight Iggy was eager to dissect.

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” Max answered.

“So, give me different words, Max. Your words.”

Shifting on the floor, his shoulder blades pressing into the hard surface beneath him, Max pondered what those  _ different words _ would be.

**********

10:29 PM, THURSDAY

“I feel as if we’re slipping away from each other, Helen. I feel like I’m losing you.”

“You're not losing me, Max,” Helen reassured, watching him shiver as a cold night breeze swept between them. “But I might lose you to hypothermia if you don't go back inside.”

“I'm being serious, Helen.”

She smiled. “So am I.” But Max knew she wasn’t - he knew she was trying to dissuade any profound declarations from being made there on the street.

“I just don't want this to be a repeat of…” Max stopped himself from finishing the sentence, realizing it would trigger an argument he wasn't prepared to have.

“Repeat of what?” Helen asked.  _ Too late,  _ Max thought.

“No, it's nothing. Sorry. You know me - I’m tired and I'm all over the place.”

Helen nodded, but Max could see in her eyes that his weak explanation hadn't been enough. “Okay then, Max. I should go--”

“A repeat of when you didn't want to be my doctor anymore,” Max blurted out, raising his arms in a full-body shrug.

“Excuse me?”

“I know, it's stupid. And I thought it, then I knew I shouldn't say it--”

“But you thought it,” Helen replied, cutting him off. 

“A passing thought. A micro-thought. Barely a thought at all.”

“I stopped being your doctor to save your life, Max.”

“I know,” Max said, but Helen couldn't hear him - she wasn't done.

“I stopped that part of our relationship to save the rest and, if I recall correctly, only one of us acted like a petulant child during the transition.”

“I don't know if I would say petulant--”

“Max, why did you chase after me?”

Without delay, Max took one large step closer, decreasing the gap between them. They weren't as close as they had been that fateful night in her office - the night they almost kissed - but he was still close enough to smell the sandalwood perfume she wore, and he inhaled it deep.

“I wanted to see you one more time before the night was through,” he told her. He half-smiled, as if to show her he knew how ridiculous it sounded. He was going to see her at 9AM the next morning, he was going to walk with her and talk with her, share patients with her in between playful jabs and lame jokes. But the way they had left things - the way they seemed to always leave things - ate away at him. Max didn't want to go another night without firmly knowing she was having a wonderful sleep. He didn't want to be the cause of her discomfort, her heartache.

“I just wanted to see you again,” Max repeated, staring down into her dark brown eyes. 

She scanned his face, craning her neck to the side like he so often did, her eyes creased in examination. But Max knew she could see his honesty, feel his sincerity. Without fanfare, Helen met the distance between them and reached out for Max, enveloping him in a hug.

He could feel her usually rigid body soften in his arms. Without thinking, without overanalyzing, Max returned the gesture and wrapped his arms around her midsection squeezing tightly. He brought his head to rest on her shoulder, slumping forward into her much smaller frame, but Helen stood her ground accepting his weight. They held their positions, stuck together; their bodies fitting like the pieces of a puzzle. Max brought his left hand to rest on the back of her neck, his fingers wrapping in her thick hair. As he did, Helen pressed herself even closer, her head nearly nuzzling his chest. They held one another long enough for their breathing to find a collective rhythm - exhaling their anxiety in unison.

When a car horn abruptly honked, it shattered the invisible glass box Helen and Max had constructed and suddenly they were exposed. Helen pulled away first, and Max reluctantly followed suit.

But her happiness was palpable. Max could feel her finally radiating the comfort and contentedness she spurred within him. Yes, their relationship status was far from cemented, but Max knew her small gesture - a hug - had brought back a kind of equilibrium.

And then Max ruined it. “So, are you headed to Dr. Shin’s apartment?”

Suddenly, the happiness fluttered away, caught on a gust of wind blowing out over the East River. Trapped within it was Helen’s smile.

She sighed in response, turned, and walked away.

Max watched her continue down 1st Avenue, her heels clacking on the sidewalk, the sound growing fainter as her figure disappeared from view.

**********

3:47 PM, FRIDAY

The door to Max’s office clicked open, revealing the disapproving glower of Karen Brantley. She kicked at Max’s sneakers, his body still stretched out on the floor, forcing him to sit up.

“Dr. Frome, you may leave,” she said coolly.

“To be honest, we were just on the cusp on some really breakthrough stuff here and I think--”

“Dr. Frome, I don't care.”

Iggy lightly groaned as he pulled himself off the couch and shared a sympathetic look with his medical director. Grabbing the now melted ice pack from the table, he shuffled between Max and Brantley to the door. Iggy turned back, as if to say something, but thought better of it, instead, closing the door behind him as he left.

“Well, Max, that was some show,” Brantley began. “I’ve been fielding calls from board members for the last two hours.”

“Two hours that could have been spent making sure Helen was alright,” Max retorted, his back now resting against the rarely used bookshelf that decorated the far wall.

“No, Max. That was two hours that  _ you  _ could have been helping her.”

Max scoffed. “Then why was I in here?”

“Because you can’t punch coworkers in the hall, Max. Hell, you can't punch them anywhere. I know we disagree on a great number of things, but please tell me that’s not one of them.”

“I’ll apologize to Dr. Shin.”

Brantley crossed her arms defiantly. “Yes, you will. But you’re also going to step down as medical director effective immediately.”

Max jumped to his feet and Brantley stepped back, surprised. “No, Karen, I won’t.”

“The board has spoken and--”

“Are you firing me?”

Brantley cleared her throat, her arms still crossed, her body language closed and hard. “We think it would be best if you resigned.”

Max chuckled. “Because firing the medical director of New York’s largest and oldest public hospital, a medical director who receives great press and implements successful programs would bring some unwanted attention to the board, huh?”

“Yes, Max, of course it would. It could also dramatical affect fundraising efforts this year. So, we need you to step down for “personal reasons” and that will be that.”

He shook his head sadly. “And who wouldn't believe I have “personal reasons" given everything I’ve been through this year, right?”

“Don't do that, Max. Don't make me the bad guy.”

“Well, I'm sorry to put you through this, but I'm not resigning. I've been asked to leave before. It was a mistake then and it's a mistake now.”

“You were asked to leave before because Dean Fulton was a tight ass who didn't like being outshone. This is about you assaulting a fellow doctor, a doctor under your charge. Not to mention screaming at a patient--”

Max opened his mouth to object, but Brantley held her hand up, much like Iggy had done just a few hours before. “And please, don't tell me that the patient in question is most likely the one who attacked Dr. Sharpe, because I already know that. And we both know that knowledge should not undermine his level of care.”

Max exhaled out all the comebacks he wanted to spew in Brantley’s direction because he knew she was right. The day of the police shooting, the day they lost Jalen Pagan, Max had told Lou Navarro that everyone who came through those emergency room doors was simply a patient, no matter what brought them there. Of course he had been disgusted by the violence and of course he had strong thoughts about how to stop it in the future - as did many of his staff. But his job was to be a doctor; his job was to help people… leaving social justice issues, politics, and personal beliefs behind. But as Max turned around and spied the remnants of the hollow-point bullet he still kept on display in his office he knew how hard it was to follow that ethos - especially when it came to the man who hurt Helen Sharpe.

“You're right,” Max finally whispered, resigning himself to the knowledge that he’d done wrong by Brantley, by New Amsterdam, and by Helen; resigning himself to the knowledge that he didn't know where to go from here.

Max stepped backward, thinking the bookcase was closer, thinking he could lean and relieve the weight his body was carrying - but it was too far. He tripped on his own feet and tumbled back, his hand shooting out on instinct. Brantley caught it and pulled him forward. Within an instant, the chair of the board found her medical director falling into her shoulder, tears cascading down his face. 

“Everything’s going to be alright, Max,” Brantley told him, but her voice cracked giving away uncertainty. To cover her doubt, Brantley placed a hand on Max’s back and gently patted him again and again as the tears continued to fall.

**********

6:03 PM, FRIDAY

Helen laid in bed staring at the ceiling of her hospital room, watching the lights from the New York street below play against the white paint. Her eyes darted back and forth, following the light like a cat would - anything to keep her mind off the memories she knew would plague her for life.

Lauren Bloom had left an hour before, after falling asleep in the chair next to Helen’s bedside. She’d worked a full shift and then spent the remaining hours of the afternoon with Helen, holding a water cup and straw to her friend’s parched lips and fluffing the pillow behind her aching head. 

Alone with the thoughts she didn't want to have, Helen keyed in on the lights dancing above her bed watching them like one would watch a movie, enthralled by every new twist and turn the glimmering reflections took along the wall.

When a trio of nurses passed the room, Helen strained to hear their conversation just beyond the glass doors, eager for a new distraction. But when she heard her own name, Helen couldn’t help but groan.  _ Are they talking about me? Gossiping about me? _

She had never been one to crack the whip; what the nurses wanted to do in their downtime was none of her business. Throughout her years at New Amsterdam, Helen had found couples making out in closets, sneaking smoke breaks on the roof, and she’d once stumbled upon a group playing dice for money in an empty conference room. While these acts were definitely against the hospital’s rules of conduct - and perhaps some were a little illegal - Helen had not been deputy medical director then; nor did she want to piss off the nurses she so desperately needed to do her job. 

But to think they were talking about her, to think the hospital was infected with the story of what had happened to her was too much. Helen counted in her head -  _ one, two, three, four, five  _ \- as if counting sheep to fall asleep, louder and louder until they were gone. 

Exhaling slowly, careful not to jostle herself for fear of instigating a painful cramp in her already bruised stomach, Helen closed her eyes tight. Earlier she had almost cried. She had felt the tears welling inside her, wetting her eyes, yet no matter how much agony she felt being trapped in that bed, her wounds throbbing, the tears never fell. Perhaps she was cried out; her stock run dry after suffering the loss of her fiancé, Mohammed. Perhaps she was incapable of being that vulnerable in front of the people she worked with, even friends like Bloom. Or perhaps she was simply too angry to cry.

As the flicker of green changed to red above her bed, signaling a change of the intersection lights just outside her window, Helen heard the honking of a car horn. She softly chuckled to herself, reminded of the horn that had interrupted her and Max on that very same street just the night before. If only she hadn’t reacted so coldly toward him when he asked about Shin; if only she had stayed; if only…

“Hi.”

The voice was flat and small, but recognizable all the same. Helen strained against her sore body and raised her head before mouthing a reply: “Hi, Max.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Again, this story talks about assault. Apologies if that bothers anyone but, as always, I am trying to be as sensitive as possible.
> 
> Also: Sorry for not posting this past weekend as I had hoped to, but more chapters on the way.
> 
> Please comment if you are liking this so I know to keep going - or let me know what you'd like to see changed.  
> Thanks!

Max Goodwin cautiously walked toward the sterile white bed positioned in the middle of the room. Helen Sharpe was lying under the thin sheet, a thick, grey wool blanket folded at her feet. Max moved toward the blanket, taking it with one hand and gently unfurling it. Helen shook her head no - not to say she didn't want the warmth, he knew, but rather to wave him off of exerting any extra effort on her behalf. Max ignored her and placed the soft throw over her legs and midsection, carefully tucking in the edge closest to him.

As he leaned over her, Helen caught sight of the bruise on his jawline. It was purple and slightly raised. Had the room been darker, she might not have noticed, but the reflections of light Helen had been so taken with were now illuminating Max’s face. She pointed at his injury and gently cocked her head to the side to get a better look.

Max brought a hand to his face - unaware of what Helen was pointing at - but when his fingers grazed the injury a flash of pain spread across his skin. “Oh, this. It's nothing, really.”

Helen raised her left eyebrow doubtfully. Max smiled, but it wasn't returned. He wondered if she was even able to smile, as her face was covered in awful injuries. She was sporting a red welt just above her right eyebrow leading down to a partially bruised eye, the eyelid speckled in various shades of deep purple. Her left earlobe had been torn and stitched back together; Max assumed one of her beautifully ornate earrings had been ripped viciously from her soft skin. And her chin and jawline were rigid, the skin taut and flush - the tell-tale signs of being repeatedly slapped with an open hand.

Helen swallowed hard, her own saliva like poison in her swollen throat. Max watched as her face contracted in pain, before moving to the side table to fetch a half-full jug of water. He picked it up, sloshing the liquid about and held it before her, but she shook her head from side-to-side in refusal.

“I don't mind,” he told her.

He couldn’t have known that just hours before Lauren Bloom had been standing in that same spot, the straw from a plastic pink cup held tightly between her fingers to keep it from moving against Helen’s tender and cut lips. He couldn’t have known how vulnerable Helen had felt then, how ashamed. It was one thing to let Bloom see that, _but never Max,_ she thought.

Sensing her hesitancy, Max resolved not to push and instead placed the jug back on the table. He sighed involuntarily, unable to hide his feelings of powerlessness. 

Helen reached out for his hand, but stopped herself at the edge of the bed. Rather, she wrapped it into the blanket and pulled the fabric closer, higher up her form. As she leaned back to bring the wool under her chin, a large welt came into view and Max’s eyes bulged in surprise. Yes, he had seen her injuries when she was lying unconscious in the ED, but he hadn’t examined her the way her primary doctor would have- the way Bloom would have. The heavy red line across her neck, and the tiny abrasions that dotted the once smooth skin around it, screamed up at him angrily and Max quickly turned away. He didn't want Helen to see how uncomfortable he’d become, but it was too late. Helen groaned and pulled the blanket fully over her neck, hoping it would somehow become an invisibility cloak.

They stood like that for a moment, as he collected his thoughts… his feelings. The rage and guilt and hurt he had been experiencing that morning subsided somewhat during his hours’ long talk with Iggy Frome. No big revelations were made - Max wouldn’t have allowed it, refusing to be that emotionally unguarded with a member of his staff, even a friend - but their discussion had brought much of his anger under control. Max had felt ready to see Helen; was itching to see her, in fact, the entire elevator ride down to her floor. But the marks on her neck brought back his venom and it took everything Max had to tamp down the urge to run to the ED to find her attacker and recreate those wounds on a less innocent target. 

“I'm sorry,” Max whispered, as he finally turned back to face her, the anger quietly simmering.

Helen nodded in reply, but kept herself closed off and covered. 

“I don't-- I’m not--” Max sighed again; it was louder as the need to hide his frustration rapidly faded away. “I wish I knew what to say,” he finally offered.

Helen closed her eyes and attempted a half-smile, but the cut on her upper lip stretched painfully to reveal a spot of blood. To her, _I don't know what to say_ felt like their motto. For months they had been oscillating between colleagues, friends, and something more - but never quite settling on a label, never quite knowing what to do, say, or call themselves. What happened to her on that street corner, what that man did to her wouldn’t - shouldn’t - change that. Yet, Helen couldn't help but feel disappointed in Max for not having one of his amazing ideas, one of his uplifting speeches to see them both through.

“I wish I could offer you more,” he said, as if reading her mind. 

Helen opened her eyes. Max was standing closer, his hands at the edge of the bed, curled tensely into the sheet. His head was lowered, and Helen angled her own gently to the side, trying to see his face, his eyes. Flicking the blanket to the side, Helen finally slid her hand across the small expanse between them and wrapped her fingers around Max’s fist. He immediately relaxed under her touch and raised his head. They locked eyes and he grinned - this time his movement was bathed in warmth and Helen felt the familiar Max Goodwin hopefulness spread through her.

“I was so scared,” he told her, squeezing her hand as if afraid his revelation would force her to pull away. Instead, Helen only gripped tighter, their hands intertwining perfectly.

“I was too,” she mouthed as the tears finally came.

  
  


**********

7:42 AM, SATURDAY

"If Max goes, I go."

"Iggy, you have, like, 10 kids. You can't resign,” Dr. Lauren Bloom reminded him. She was sitting on the light olive coloured couch in Iggy’s office, her feet kicked up on the wooden table before her. Iggy was stomping about near his desk, exasperation dripping from his pores.

“Someone has to do something.”

“Okay, well, why don’t you rewind a bit here and tell me how you know Max is going to resign.”

“Max is resigning?” Dr. Vijay Kapoor asked from the doorway. He was holding a paper cup, its plastic yellow lid shining under the harsh overhead lights.

“We don't know yet,” Bloom replied, sliding over and silently offering Kapoor a seat.

“We do know!” Iggy protested. “We do.”

“How do we know?” Kapoor asked as he found his spot next to Bloom. Taking in Bloom's relaxed nature, he pushed back on the couch, sinking deeper into its cushions. 

“Yesterday, Brantley laid out all the reasons he had to resign.”

"Had to?" Kapoor asked.

"Well, when you punch a fellow doctor in the face--" Iggy began, but Bloom cut him off.

"Was it the face? Like, actually - pow - right in the face?" She chuckled. "I mean, I'm not saying Shin deserved it. Just saying that's something I'd be interested in seeing."

Iggy sighed. "I doubt there will be a repeat performance."

"But, yes, I heard it was right in the face," Kapoor said a bit too gleefully. It seemed Shin's standoffish approach to his work colleagues had earned him few supporters among the staff.

"Can we focus?" Iggy asked.

Bloom nodded. "Yes, of course. So, Brantley told you that Max was resigning--"

"No, no. Brantley didn't tell me anything."

"So, Max told you?" Kapoor wondered out loud.

"No, I was outside Max’s office door and overheard Brantley tell him he had to resign.”

Bloom loudly scoffed, receiving a stern look from her therapist friend. “What? Iggy, come on. Through the door? She could have said anything. It might not have been _resign._ ”

“Line. Design. Combine,” Kapoor offered.

“Wine,” Bloom cracked. “Or… shit, benign. They could have been talking about a patient.”

“Yes,” Kapoor readily agreed. “Ms. Brantley seems very concerned about the hospital. Much more so than other members of the board.”

“Oh, does she now?” Bloom kicked off the table and turned toward Kapoor, a sly smile plastered across her face.

“I am telling you Brantley is forcing him out, and I'm not gonna stand for it,” Iggy cried, breaking the stare Bloom and Kapoor were engaged in and leaving the revelation of Kapoor and Brantley’s secret flirtations for another time.

“Okay, so--”

“So, if Max goes, I go,” Iggy said again, his resolve strengthened. He held his hands out, silently gesturing for his friends to join in his mission. "Come on."

"What smells like peppermint?" Bloom finally questioned, inhaling deep.

"Oh, my tea!" Kapoor replied. "It's just wonderful--"

"Enough! Believe me or don't believe me, that's entirely up to you. But I am walking out New Amsterdam's front doors--" Iggy pointed to the window, forgetting it faced the back courtyard. Bloom and Kapoor pointed to the hall and Iggy followed suit. "I am walking out the front doors that are in that direction if Max is forced to leave."

Kapoor placed his tea on the table and stood in solidarity. “If Max goes, I go.”

Standing on either end of the couch, the two men looked down at Bloom. "Alright, alright. It's not like I love my job and maybe even need it to ensure my sobriety or anything."

Iggy raised an eyebrow and Bloom sighed.

"Okay, Max goes, I go," she said, a small groan escaping her lips as she stood. "But I’m not putting my hand in or signing a blood oath. Deal?”

“Deal.”

**********

8:00 AM, SATURDAY

The glass doors of Helen’s hospital room slid open and a female nurse poked her head inside. She peered about the room, the white surfaces awash in morning sunshine. Eventually, her eyes landed on the medical director, curled uncomfortably in a chair. He was wearing his ever-present scrubs but the wrinkles somehow looked permanent.

“Dr. Goodwin,” the nurse whispered as she approached. “Dr. Goodwin.”

The nurse reached out and took Max’s shoulder, gently shaking it to rouse him from sleep. Max stirred for only a moment, before shooting upright as if startled by a good horror film.

“I'm sorry,” the nurse said, shocked by Max’s movement. She continued in a whisper, “But it’s 8:00 AM, Doctor.”

Max ran a hand down the length of his face and groaned. “Right. Yes. Thank you.”

The nurse nodded then tiptoed away, careful not to wake Dr. Sharpe.

Max slowly stood. He knew he had work to do, but his heart would not let him leave. The pull of Helen was so great, he took a stride toward her bed, rather than the door, and leaned over his friend. He wanted to kiss her forehead - the urge to feel the heat of her skin against his lips was so strong he almost forgot about her injuries. But hours after her attack, in the glow of yellow sunshine, Max could see her numerous bruises as they strained to heal. The patchwork of purple and green that inked her caramel skin, forced Max to reconsider. 

Instead, he whispered, “I'll see you later.” 

Backing away from her bed, he softly walked to the already open door and slipped out into the hallway. As he turned, still groggy, still waking to the world around him, Max bumped into Dr. Cassian Shin squishing a bouquet of flowers between them.

“Oh, sorry,” Max began, the petals of a light pink carnation stuck to his blue scrubs. Max picked at the plant pieces as he looked up, his eyes catching Shin’s frosty hazel stare.

“Dr. Goodwin,” Shin said coolly.

“Dr. Shin,” Max returned, his hand now full of petals. He looked around the hallway, seeking out a garbage can… and a quick escape.

“I just came to drop these off,” Shin told the medical director, lifting the now slightly damaged bouquet, causing more petals to fall.

Max realized he was standing in Shin’s way and dodged to the far side of the hallway, hoping his movement would end their awkward encounter, but Shin did not budge.

“I care about her,” he said.

“So, do I,” Max replied.

“I know,” Shin cracked, turning his head to reveal the light blue bruise on this chin. “And I understand where all that anger came from. So, no hard feelings, okay?”

Taken aback, Max cleared his throat. He wasn't sure how to reply. Perhaps Shin didn't understand why Max had attacked him - that the anger wasn't just due to what happened to Helen, but his belief that Shin should have prevented it. _Leave it,_ Max told himself. It wasn't the time to question the nature of Shin and Helen’s relationship. It wasn't the time to point fingers or throw more punches.

Finally, Max responded. “I appreciate that, Dr. Shin.”

Shin nodded, then stepped into Helen’s hospital room. With one foot across the invisible threshold he turned to face Max. “But if it happens again, I won't hold back.”

He quickly closed the sliding glass doors between them before taking up residence next to Helen's bed in the same chair Max had just occupied.

**********

“Here,” Max said, dropping the collection of loose of carnation petals into Iggy’s hand.

“Wow, okay. I usually prefer the whole flower, but--”

“How can I help?” Max asked, cutting Iggy off.

Max was walking through New Amsterdam's main lobby, on his way to the coffee shop for some much needed caffeine. He had encountered Iggy coming the opposite way. Now, the two men were briskly weaving through the morning throngs of patients and staff together.

“Um, you can help by explaining what’s going on?”

Max shrugged. “I'm gonna need more than that, Iggy.”

“We heard you are resigning,” Dr. Kapoor said. His sudden presence spooked Max and he stopped in his tracks. Kapoor and Iggy came to rest just before him, turning to face their friend. “Is it true?”

“I don't know,” Max told them.

“You don't know?” Iggy asked incredulously. 

“Nope.”

“Well, there you have it,” Kapoor replied, as if Max’s answer had solved some riddle.

Iggy scoffed. “What? No. Max, if you go, we go--”

Max reached out for Iggy’s shoulder. “Whoa, there. Let’s put a pause on that sentiment, okay?”

“Max, we’re here for you. This is about solidarity. This is about what’s right,” Iggy told him.

Max pushed through the two doctors as he spied an opening in the coffee line just ahead of them. Calling back, he said, “No, Iggy, this is about everyone keeping their jobs.”

Iggy and Kapoor rushed after him.

“So, are you keeping your job?” Iggy asked.

“Coffee, black,” Max said to the male barista, placing a five dollar bill on the counter between them. As the man hurried to fulfill the order, Max replied, “Please tell me my impending resignation is not what the hospital is talking about.”

The black coffee now poured, the barista said. “Oh, no. Everyone’s talking about Dr. Sharpe.”

Max, Iggy, and Kapoor stood speechless, staring at the stranger, their mouths collectively agape, but the jangle of keys and heavy thump of boots against hospital tile quickly broke through the awkwardness. Every head turned as four security guards rushed past the small coffee shop. Karen Brantley was hot on their heels.

“What’s going on?” Max called out to Brantley as he followed, leaving his coffee order on the counter.

“The patient is gone,” she replied.

Max didn’t have to ask which patient - of course, he knew.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: this story touches on assault and there is a little bit of that in this chapter. As always, I am trying to be sensitive, but let me know if there is something you would/would not like to read.
> 
> Just a note: this chapter is a little longer than normal because it bounces around a bit. I'm preparing for some chapters after this that focus on just one or two characters at a time...
> 
> Any comments are so, so, so appreciated. And thank you to all who have read/commented thus far.

“What do you mean gone?” Iggy Frome asked. He was standing in the middle of the hallway, the crush of New Amsterdam staff moving around him. Just moments before, a group of hospital security guards had been clearing a path, their hurried footsteps drowning out the early morning chatter. 

Karen Brantley heavily sighed. “Dr. Frome, please.”

“Please, what?” He scoffed. “You lost a criminal.”

Brantley grabbed the therapist by the elbow and led him and Dr. Kapoor to the edge of the hallway, trying in vain to signal that discretion was needed. “Firstly, I did not lose him. Secondly, we are looking. Thirdly, let’s try to keep our indignation to a minimum, as well as the volume of our voice.”

Iggy rolled his eyes, doing nothing to hide his frustration. “Excuse me for not being in the mood to cover up the board’s shortfalls. What was it? Not enough money for a security guard outside his door? Because you certainly had enough to cover Max’s office yesterday afternoon.”

“Iggy,” Kapoor harshly whispered. He knew emotions were heightened - the attack against Helen Sharpe, Max’s impending resignation, and now a suspected criminal slipping from the hospital back out onto the streets. Kapoor could feel Iggy’s anger, but he knew that publicly yelling at the chair of the board would solve nothing. 

Iggy exhaled, the gruff expulsion of air startling Brantley. She stepped back and Iggy frowned. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m just going through some things.”

“We all are,” Kapoor offered, again trying to diffuse the tension. 

Brantley nodded in agreement. “Of course, but we have this under control. Dr. Frome, Dr. Kapoor, you can--”

“Wait,” Iggy interrupted. "Where’s Max?”

**********

Max Goodwin was running down the hall, hot on the heels of the security detail assigned to search for the missing patient. After they poked their heads inside a room and jotted away, Max followed suit - giving the room another once-over. He wanted to be sure nothing was missed, no clue forgotten.

“Sir, we have this under control,” the guard pulling rear position had told him, but Max only nodded. He couldn't properly explain how helpless he’d felt for the last day and a half or how running alongside them was the only thing keeping him from screaming in exasperation.

On the fourth floor, Max and the security team ran past a bank of elevators - they’d been using the stairs, checking all the darker, hidden corners of the hospital while getting in every ounce of that day’s cardio. When the elevator doors opened and Brantley stepped off, Max almost barrelled into her.

“Dr. Goodwin!” She shouted, and the medical director froze in his tracks, watching the guards trot away and out of sight.

“I can explain,” he began, but nothing followed. He was out of breath. For a runner, Max was in excellent shape. He had to be - working 12 to 13 hour days, constantly on his feet, running about the hospital, not to mention his frequent visits to the daycare to play with his daughter. If he wasn't in good shape, New Amsterdam simply would not function. But after the day he’d had, the emotional toll was too much. Running up four flights of stairs was the last straw. “Wait, I can explain,” he said again, panting.

"I don't think that'll be necessary," she replied dryly. "Perhaps you should go back to your office."

Max chuckled, but the sound was strangled as he caught his breath. "Another lockdown in my office? Funny that you're able to--"

Brantley cut him off. "If you're about to call me out on my ability to monitor you but not our patients, save it. Dr. Frome's already gone down that road and… well, as much as I hate to admit it, he's right."

Max raised an eyebrow. His breathing had steadied, but the exhaustion was so prevalent Max leaned on the wall next to the elevator. He was surprised when Brantley matched his movements, so that the two heads of New Amsterdam were sloped against the white wall, side-by-side. 

As Max crossed his arms, he asked, "Why aren't we on lockdown?" 

"We both know I can't lockdown a whole hospital for a man that's technically not a criminal," Brantley replied, but she was only explaining what Max had been thinking. While she might have felt a pang of guilt for not posting a guard at the patient's door there truly wasn't any reason to, and the chair of the board labelling the patient - a patient who hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even been identified - as Helen Sharpe’s attacker could backfire if it was proven untrue.

So, instead of engaging her in another verbal sparring match, Max simply nodded his understanding before asking, "Have you called the police?"

"Of course."

"And?"

Brantley turned to face Max, her disappointment palpable. "As far as the police are concerned, this man's done nothing wrong, and with New York's backlog in DNA testing who knows when their thinking on that will change."

“So, basically, they’re not coming,” Max finished.

“When Dr. Sharpe’s ready to talk, I'm sure they’ll be back… but until then.”

“Yeah,” he replied, a sadness passing between them.

“Yeah,” Brantley repeated, her tone matching his. She turned away then, bringing her back into contact with the wall once more.

They stood for a moment, both leaning silent and still as the world moved around them, hospital staff hurrying to and fro. Finally, Brantley sighed. “Have you apologized to Dr. Shin?”

Startled, it was Max’s turn to face her. He thought back to his conversation with Shin just outside Helen’s hospital room door. He remembered the squished floral bouquet, and the macho attempt at a stare-down, but he couldn't actually remember apologizing. In fact, he was certain he hadn’t.

“I will,” Max told her, trying to sound as convincing as possible - but Max wasn’t sure if he could. _Have I missed my chance to really mean it?_ He thought. _Did I even intend to mean it at all?_

“Well, I’ve been thinking, it seems crazy to force a single father to resign before he has another job lined up,” Brantley began. “So, maybe after you set things right with Dr. Shin, we can put your resignation on hold until--”

Max gasped. “Luna!”

He turned away from Brantley, his face flush with shame, before rushing toward the stairwell. The metal door clanked heavily as he crashed into it, his feet carrying him up the concrete stairs two at a time.

**********

9:27 AM, SATURDAY

Helen Sharpe had been awake for more than an hour, dividing her time between staring at the bouquet of flowers on the side table near her hospital bed and the security guard posted just outside her door. 

The man was sitting with his back propped against the glass wall, his focus toggling between the hallway, the elevator bank, and the nurses’ station. She was thankful he couldn't see her, because the pain was growing in intensity and she didn't want a stranger to watch as her face contorted when each injury groaned. The call button was tantalizing close. Reaching out her long, lean fingers Helen could grab it, press it, and find the sweet release of morphine swirling through her veins in no time - but she knew a nurse would have to administer it, perhaps even a doctor if the drug had yet to be prescribed. Someone somewhere would have to know that she couldn’t handle what had happened to her. _I’m not weak,_ she told herself, as if the mantra could ease her physical pain. _I am not weak._

As she turned her head again, starting longingly at the call button, the flowers came back into view - a cluster of carnations in three shades of pink. She could plainly see some had been crushed, their petals not nearly as vibrant as the others. But it was the card that kept drawing her eyes back. It simply said: _Get well._ Helen didn’t recognize the handwriting, but almost every doctor she knew had two different writing styles - one for charts and prescription pads, a scrawl that oftentimes was nearly impossible to read, and another for “real-life”... for all the things they wanted seen. Helen ran through the usual suspects in her mind. 

Lauren Bloom wouldn’t have brought flowers. Flowers die. She would have brought a bottle of top shelf tequila and two shot glasses. _Scratch that,_ Helen thought, remembering how amazingly Bloom had been handling her sobriety. Her friend would have brought Helen’s favourite pistachio cheesecake from Magnolia Bakery and two sporks. 

Iggy Frome loved a good bouquet of flowers, but she knew carnations wouldn't have been his first choice. Two years prior, Iggy was looking to surprise his husband with a date night at home. He wanted to decorate their living room, draping it in a garland of flowers and lighting candles along their mantle place. When asked for her opinion, Helen had said lilies were her favourite - and even though Iggy had gone with roses and snapdragons, she knew that was the kind of information he would file away for a rainy day.

Vijay Kapoor would have brought a gift. In fact, Helen was certain she would see him later that day with a tin full of lovingly made laddu. She smiled thinking about the gesture, then cringed imagining what it would be like to push the sweet dough into her mouth as her jaw screamed out in pain. 

That left the two men in her life: Cassian Shin and Max Goodwin. 

Helen sighed. _When did things get so complicated?_ she wondered, but the answer was clear. Things got complicated the moment she decided to miss her flight to Vail. Max’s 48-hour ultimatum was the beginning of her new life - a life full of professional fulfillment and renewed friendships, but also one full of confusion and heartache.

Staring at the thick, long lines of black ink she knew it was Shin. _Get well_ was something he would write, something he would think, because getting well felt possible to him - everything felt possible to him. But Max would know better. He would know that Helen couldn't yet see a way to being “well”, being better, being whole. And Max would know that she needed time, not well-wishes.

She was more certain than ever that the flowers were from Shin, a lovely gesture from a lovely man that somehow turned her stomach.

**********

11:18 AM, SATURDAY

“Did it happen already?” Lauren Bloom asked as she strode to the empty bench seat between Iggy and Kapoor. The two men were sitting in the courtyard behind the hospital, both wearing looks of dejection almost as boldly as she wore her long, white lab coat. “Did I miss it?”

“Miss what?” Iggy asked without looking up, his eyes seemingly glued to the concrete beneath his feet.

“No, you did not miss it,” Kapoor replied, knowing immediately what his colleague meant.

Bloom sat between them, stretching her legs out before her, a sneaker clad foot shooting playfully into Iggy’s line of sight. He sighed and repeated, “Miss what?”

“Operation Max Goes We Go,” she told him, pushing sideways to jostle his shoulder with her own. Iggy didn’t reciprocate her whimsy and Bloom complained, “What gives?”

“The man who attacked Helen escaped,” Iggy said, his eyes still downcast.

“What?” Bloom cried. A couple sitting just three benches over looked up from their conversation, but Bloom barrelled on. “What are you talking about?”

“To be clear, we don’t yet know if this man did anything to Helen,” Kapoor offered, but Iggy was already out of his seat before the doctor could finish.

“Come on! Not this again, Vijay!” Iggy shouted. The outburst caused the couple to gather their things - a thermos, a shoulder bag, a paperback novel - and move further down the line of benches. On any other day, he might have apologized, but in the midst of his anger Iggy chose to ignore them.

“I don't understand what happened,” Bloom said, pulling on the edge of Iggy’s navy blazer, trying to physically tug his attention back to her.

“Neither do we,” Iggy said despondently. He sighed before taking his seat once again, his head heavy with sadness and confusion. “I guess he just got up and walked out.”

“With an eye still shoved half-way up his skull?” Bloom scoffed. In an instant she was standing, taking the place Iggy had been occupying, before unconsciously mimicking his trademark pacing. “I told Shin to get him into surgery. I told him! If the guy had been in post-op there’s no way he would have been able to walk out.”

“Or if the police had actually questioned him,” Iggy added.

“What?” Bloom shouted. The couple, now five benches away, again picked up their belongings and this time walked from the courtyard back toward New Amsterdam. As they passed by the doctors, chattering under their breaths, Bloom cracked, “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I interrupt your lunch?”

“Lauren, please,” Kapoor pleaded, but it was no use. Bloom and Iggy were both riled up, each feeding off one another’s indignation.

“They were here taking pictures of Helen, asking me and Casey questions, but not the attacker?”

“He was sleeping. I’m sure they didn't want to disturb the poor guy,” Iggy told her, the sarcasm dripping from his lips. “I'm all about patient’s rights - I mean, of course I am - but what about Helen’s rights?”

Bloom nodded her agreement. “So, they scrape the blood off her hands, but just don’t bother to do the same with Mr. No Name. Yeah, that makes complete sense," she scoffed.

The three of them knew a ball had been dropped, and now a potentially dangerous man was out on the streets.

“Perhaps he will be in the city’s database,” Kapoor said, trying to keep hope alive.

“And while that might help catch him, it’ll mean there are other victims out there, other women this man has violated,” Iggy reminded his friend - although no reminder had been needed. “But they had him right here. They had him!”

“So, what are we gonna do about it?” Bloom questioned.

Iggy shook his head. “There’s nothing to do.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the spirit,” she mocked. “Come on, there’s got to be something.”

“He is still injured,” Kapoor said. “Perhaps he went to another hospital.”

“Yes! Yes! Good,” Bloom cried. “So, Kapoor, you call the surrounding hospitals.”

“Oh, well--” Kapoor began, but he was interrupted by the chime of her pager.

Reaching down to the band of her scrubs and unclipping the device, Bloom held it up to her face, squinting against the morning sun to read the message. “Okay, I gotta go, but I’m gonna talk to the paramedics.”

“Which paramedics?” Iggy asked.

“I don't know, but one of them said something about attacks in the neighbourhood. Maybe they have the inside track on who this guy is or the name of another victim.”

“Lauren, it’s not the best idea to go poking around someone else's trauma,” Iggy replied.

She laughed. “Says the guy who pokes for a living. Relax, I’m just gonna talk to some paramedics and see what’s what. Don’t worry, I’ll leave all the heavy lifting to you.” 

Bloom smiled and Iggy couldn’t help but mirror the move. He loved how quickly her anger had turned to optimism. He loved that they had something to do; they were useful again. _Wait…_

“What am I supposed to do?” He called after Bloom as she rushed back toward the hospital.

“Talk to Helen,” she shouted. “Someone has to tell her this guy is out there.”

“But did she even know he was here?” Kapoor asked, louder than he had intended to - but the words made Lauren Bloom stop in her tracks, even as her pager rang out again.

Bloom was reminded of when Helen arrived in the emergency room, how Casey had to push the first patient’s bed aside to make room for her, how she noticed the blood on Helen’s thumb - the blood of her attacker - and how she was sure it would match the blood oozing for the unnamed man’s eye injury. But Helen had been unconscious then, and Bloom hadn’t shared anything with her when they visited for fear of upsetting her… or, more accurately, fear of being the reason she was upset. 

Bloom had been wondering all night if her friend would approve of her actions. Hearing that Max had accosted the man in the hallway had been shocking - _not Max Goodwin, he would never,_ she initially thought - but she understood it, because all she had wanted to do was push Mr. No Name’s bed from the ED out into the cold morning air. 

Shaking those thoughts from her mind, Bloom looked sympathetically toward Iggy Frome. “You gotta tell her,” she said before slipping out of the sunshine back into the labyrinth of New Amsterdam.

**********

12:00 PM, SATURDAY

Helen watched as Max and his daughter Luna walked from the nearby elevators and straight to her hospital room door. Nodding to the security guard, Max slid open the glass door and stepped inside. Luna was strapped to his chest, facing out, staring at Helen. The little girl was almost always smiling, and somehow it was exactly what Helen needed. 

“Luna,” she said, her voice straining against her injuries.

Max grinned, the wrinkles around his eyes creasing. “She’s been asking about you.”

Helen knitted her brows in playful suspicion.

“Oh, yeah. All the time. ‘Where’s Helen? Let’s go see Helen.’ I’m telling you, she never stops.” Max was standing next to the bed, his daughter reaching out from her position against his chest, her tiny arms flailing toward Helen. Helen reciprocated, extending her left hand out - but she instantly felt a pull against her shoulder muscle and recoiled. Thankfully, Max was looking at her flowers and Helen’s flicker of pain went unnoticed.

“Nice bouquet,” he told her. His voice was low, monotone, and Helen wondered if he knew the flowers were from Shin. _Does that matter?_ She thought to herself, but of course it did.

Helen nodded in reply before opening her mouth to say something, but her throat was hoarse and the words came out as barely more than a whisper.

“What?” Max said, attempting to lean down, bringing Luna closer to the edge of the bed. As the little girl murmured incoherently, her small hand grabbed at the same blanket Max had wrapped around Helen the night before. As she did so, Max pulled back and the wool throw fell. He didn't want to crush Luna against a wounded Helen, even if he was trying to hear her better. Instead, he held up a finger, gesturing for Helen to wait, then rushed out of the room. Helen watched him stride to the nurses’ station, reach over the counter’s edge and grab a clipboard and pen.

“Here,” he told her once he got back into the room, and Helen happily took the offering. Unclipping an insurance form from the top of the stack, she flipped it over and scribbled on the blank side in black ink. As she held it out to Max, he read: “Not as nice as your gift.”

Max wore a confused look, his head cocked to one side as he read her words over again. Helen watched as his lips moved, but no sound came out. She groaned, eager to gain his attention, then lifted her right hand - attached to the uninjured shoulder - and pointed to his little girl. She was telling him the flowers were nice, but nothing was better than seeing Luna. 

Max unclipped the front of the baby carrier, and lifted Luna up and out, holding her gently under the arms. She kicked playfully, her tiny slipper clad feet waving about in the air. “Do you want to hold her?” He asked, but as Helen’s face grew ashen he knew she couldn’t.

Repositioning Luna, cradling her under his right arm, he reached out for the chair and roughly dragged it closer to the bed. As it scraped along the tile floor, Helen spied the security guard just outside her room. He turned his head and peered inside, curious about the noise.

Helen wanted to ask Max why the guard was there. It was, of course, for her protection, but she wondered why that was needed inside New Amsterdam. But almost as quickly as the question formed, it faded away as Max’s body inched closer to her own. He suddenly was seated in the chair, Luna standing on his lap, her wobbles corrected by the strong hands Max had around her midsection. 

“There,” he told Helen. “Much better.”

Helen turned partially onto her side, the injured shoulder rolling underneath her, the pain still stifled by her stubbornness. But the new set up allowed Helen to reach out with her right hand and take Luna’s own. That small gesture grounded Helen and she couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Looking into the little girl’s eyes she saw nothing but happiness. There was no judgement - how could there be? Luna didn't see her bruises, the cut on her lip, the welt on her forehead. Luna didn’t detect the pain in her shoulder, the throbbing in her abdomen. And Luna didn’t have any reason to suspect that under that grey wool blanket Helen’s bare thighs were covered in angry purple handprints.

Helen tightened her grip and Luna joyfully returned the squeeze in kind. 

Closing her eyes, feeling a sense of ease, she whispered, “Thank you.”

Max chuckled nervously in response. “Truth?”

Helen nodded, her hand still wrapped around Luna’s, the little girl still lightly giggling as Helen smiled wide for her.

“I forgot her here last night.”

Helen’s eyes grew big with worry.

“No, she’s fine. I mean, look at her,” he said, twisting her slightly to look at her beautiful, round face. “She's fine.”

Helen reluctantly released Luna’s hand and retrieved the clipboard from off her lap. She pressed the black pen against the paper, and underneath her previous message she wrote: _Why did you forget her? Because of me?_

She turned the clipboard toward Max and watched his eyes move back and forth as he silently read her words.

“Not you… me,” he told her, turning Luna in his arms to face him, before resting her head gently on his shoulder. “It’s been a strange few days.”

Helen half-heartedly shrugged and Max immediately felt regret. “Bad choice of words,” he whispered. “But I was just worried about you and my job and everything that’s happened. Somehow I forgot about her. I can’t believe it, but I did.”

Max stoked an errant tuft of Luna’s soft, light brown hair and sighed. 

“One of the daycare nurses came down here looking for me and I was asleep in this chair,” he said, grief peppering his words. “I don't think I've spent one night apart from her since... But I just wanted to be here so badly that…”

Max couldn't continue, because he wasn't sure what to say. He didn't want to confuse Helen, to make her think that spending the night watching her sleep, listening to her breathe had been a mistake. He would have never forgiven himself if he wasn't there - the same way he hadn't forgiven himself for not being there the night she was attacked. Max had simply wished Luna had been in his arms while he fell asleep in that chair, and he didn't know how to tell Helen that going forward he never wanted to go a night without either of them by his side.

Since their almost kiss, Max had felt he was missing the mark on almost every count and this was just the latest example. But as Luna nuzzled into his neck, the stubble of his freshly grown beard tickling her forehead, he knew the little girl was none the wiser. _Is that better or worse?_ He asked himself, but before an answer could come, Helen was poking at his bare arm with the end of the clipboard.

She held out the paper and he read: _I’m sorry._

“Don't be,” he told her honestly.

Helen nodded, but they both knew the guilt was something they would carry with them for some time. She groaned before writing another message, each one moving further down the sheet of paper.

As she held it up, Max read the page out loud. “Your job? What about your job?” He chuckled. “Well, I almost got fired.”

Helen opened her mouth to say something, but instead she coughed, her chest heaving with the shock of Max’s confession. _Fired,_ she thought. _How could that be?_ But almost as quickly as she wondered it, she knew the answer. Max was full of compassion, but also fire. If she was hurt, he would want to help her. If she was wronged, he would want to avenger her. Helen wasn't sure she wanted to know what he would do when both happened to her at the same time. 

As Max reached out to pat her gently, trying to ease her coughing, he continued, “But it’s fine now. I mean, I think it’s fine.” A grin lit up his face; the old Max, the sly Max was returning.

The coughing subsided, but Helen’s chest continued to burn. She inhaled deeply, and the wheezing echoed off the stark hospital room walls.

“Honestly, Helen,” Max told her again. “I'm not going anywhere. I don't care how many chairs of the board I have to cry on.”

Helen grunted, as if to beg more information out of him - _Crying on Brantley?_ S he thought. _What is going on?_ \- but Max only intensified his grin. It seemed that would be a story for another time.

As Helen's breathing returned to normal, Max leaned even closer, the hand that was on her shoulder, moving to rest on her soft cheek. He gently stroked her skin, careful not to press against her bruises. “I’m never leaving yo--” Max stopped, cleared his throat, then continued. “--here. I'm never leaving here.”

Helen smiled softly, pressing herself into his hand, happily taking the shot of pain that came with Max’s warm touch.

“Sorry, but can I interrupt?”

Iggy was suddenly at the door, standing next to the security guard, slightly inside the room. Helen could see the trepidation on his face as he wavered on the threshold, not sure if he should enter fully or not. But Max nodded, inviting him in, before pulling back from Helen, removing his hand from her cheek. The spot was replaced with a cold Helen couldn’t shake.

As Iggy closed the door behind him, Max said in a whisper meant only for her: “Remember, I'm not leaving.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: this story talks about assault. This chapter does not get into specifics (we're not there yet) but if this bothers you I apologize. Still trying to handle it with sensitivity, but let me know if I am doing it wrong.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading.  
> And comments are welcome... they let me know to keep going with this.

10:48 PM, THURSDAY

As she walked further from the embrace of New Amsterdam the street around her darkened and Helen Sharpe found herself moving more swiftly and with a renewed sense of purpose. She had only been to Cassian Shin’s apartment once, and she hadn’t gone inside. Instead, they stood on the sidewalk together, periodically staring up at the warmly lit window Shin had pointed to as his own. He’d offered her a nightcap and she’d smiled - it had been such a long time since a man, a date, had invited her up to his place, and even longer since she’d heard one use the word “nightcap” unironically. But Helen had wavered as the wind whipped about her long, black braids. 

It had been cold that night, almost too cold, and she couldn't help but fantasize what it would be like to curl up on his couch, her heels lying haphazardly on the floor with a glass of brandy in her hand. She couldn't help but wonder what his lips would feel like against her own, how his arms would wrap around her waist and warm her core.

Yet, she’d shaken her head slowly from side to side - rationality overtaking those sexually tinged fantasies. They’d shared a chaste kiss that night, nothing more than a peck, but Helen had lingered on her tiptoes for a moment longer than expected inhaling his woodsy aftershave. He had then offered to walk her home, like any good gentleman would, but after her protestations Shin ordered an Uber then waited for it to arrive, his arm slung gently over her shoulders. The ride home had been thankfully silent, and three blocks from her own apartment Helen resolved that next time she wouldn’t second-guess her attraction to such a beautiful man.

Two weeks on and a “next time” had yet to present itself. As Helen walked to Shin’s apartment, periodically checking Google Maps to ensure she was on the right path, she wondered why. 

While the banter had continued after that cold night spent talking below his apartment window, the flirting had ceased. Helen didn't want to believe Shin was the kind of man who would lose interest in a woman because she failed to sleep with him on the first date. In fact, her gut told her that couldn’t be further from the truth. Shin was decent and kind, albeit very few people knew. He had a rough, hard exterior that she’d been able to penetrate. Surely, she thought, he wouldn’t have allowed her to see his softer side if he wasn’t serious about getting close to her.

And she was just as sure their day-to-day interactions hadn’t changed following the innocent ending to their date. Shin still brought her a coffee in the morning, still came to her for patient advice, still commented on her lack of sleep and encouraged her to take a break. But gone were the long looks he would give her, the linger of his fingers on her own as the coffee cup exchanged hands.

Staring up at the buildings, trying to orient herself, Helen knew firmly the ball was in her court. But as she took a tight corner, walking further from the river, the thoughts that dominated her mind were not of Dr. Cassian Shin, but rather Max Goodwin.

Sighing, Helen whispered to herself, “It’s always Max.”

Perhaps that was why the flirting had stopped. Perhaps Shin had seen the way she looked at Max during his meetings with department heads - a mixture of annoyance and reverence. Perhaps Shin had witnessed one of their playful tête-à-têtes where the medical director and his deputy were huddled a little too close, speaking a little too warmly, and smiling a little too widely. Or perhaps Shin could just feel the flutter of her stomach radiate outward in waves whenever Max was in the room.

Helen scoffed, angry with herself for allowing a competition to continue within the confines of her heart; a competition it seemed both men were aware of. Shin had begun pulling away and Max was asking her whose apartment she was spending time in. Each believed she was seeing the other, but in reality she’d never felt more confused and alone. 

Less than an hour earlier, Helen had wanted nothing more than to hear Max admit his feelings - had he done so, his invitation to dinner would have been accepted. Yet, she was walking to Cassian Shin’s apartment determined to find solace in his arms.

 _What is wrong with you, Helen?_ She asked herself, but it was hard to choose. Should she continue to pursue Max, a man who seemed incapable of giving her what she needed? Or should she put her energy and emotions into a relationship with Shin, a man who deserved more than being her second choice?

Stopping mid-stride, Helen took in her surroundings and realized she’d somehow gotten herself lost. Her cell phone was securely in her pocket rather than her hand, the map discarded as she’d become absorbed in thought. She trembled as the night air swirled around around her, enveloping her in cold doubt. Helen knew she couldn’t see Shin, not while she was unsure of her own feelings. The ball was in her court, but she simply wasn't ready to make a play.

Sighing heavily, Helen wondered why her epiphany couldn't have come before she left her office, before she decided to walk in her high heels, and before she’d made it nearly five blocks from the hospital. _If only I’d stayed with Max,_ she thought. Yes, she was angry with him for assuming her destination before she’d revealed it - and perhaps angry at him for guessing correctly - but when thought about the perfect night curled up on the couch, heels on the floor, brandy in hand, she wasn’t in Shin’s apartment, but Max’s. 

Feeling foolish, she reached into the large pocket of her coat and wrapped her fingers around her cell phone. Suddenly, a vibration shot through her hand. As she clicked the on button and slid her index finger across the home screen to read a newly arrived text message Helen heard bulky footsteps behind her and turned around… but it was too late.

She was suddenly standing face to face with a stranger.

**********

12:30 PM, SATURDAY

“Helen, did you hear me?” Iggy Frome was standing at the foot of her hospital bed, concern painting his entire face. His hands were gripping the rail, his wedding band glinting in the high afternoon sun that shone in through the window behind her.

She nodded in reply, thinking: _Of course I heard you. How could I not?_

“Okay, I just wanted to be sure,” he told her. “Do you have any questions?”

 _Questions?_ She thought. _There’s nothing left to say._

The man they believed had attacked her had simply walked out of the hospital. He was back on the streets to do it all again. The day before, the day she’d been rushed into the ED Helen was unconscious. She’d never seen the man under New Amsterdam’s fluorescent lights; she’d been unable to identify him as her assailant. But after hearing Iggy explain the man’s injuries - specifically the severe wound to his eye - Helen knew the patient and her attacker were one in the same. Rubbing her fingers over the pad of her thumb, Helen silently thanked a long ago self-defense class for teaching how to fend off an assault. _If only I’d remembered the move sooner._

When Helen didn’t reply, Iggy stepped forward, moving to the opposite side of the bed from Max. The medical director was still sitting in the chair as near to Helen as he could, his sleeping daughter comfortably resting on his shoulder.

Since Iggy had entered the room, since he’d told her about her attacker’s escape, Helen had avoided eye-contact. She couldn't allow her friends to see her blossoming shame. As her cheeks flushed, Helen felt her wounds shouting out their presence, as if they had taken over her whole body. Helen Sharpe was gone... replaced by a victim.

That Thursday night would be permanently etched in her memory; what he had done to her would scar her soul long after the physical injuries had healed. But lying helplessly in her hospital bed Helen could only think about the other women who were to follow. Women walking late a night, lost in thought who had no idea their lives were about to change forever. 

Her discomfort was visible, and Iggy silently gestured with a flick of his neck toward the door. Max raised an eyebrow, confused as to what the therapist meant. Standing on either side of her bed, as Helen stared straight ahead, her eyes boring an invisible hole in the wall opposite her, Iggy and Max were locked in a wordless tug-of-war over what to do next. Max shook his head from side to side, unwilling to leave. Iggy squinted his eyes in frustration and sighed.

“Maybe Helen and I should talk alone, huh?” Iggy finally said.

“Um, uh...” Max stammered. He was taken aback by the suggestion. He’d assumed Iggy had been signaling they both leave the room, both giving Helen time to process the news she’d just received. As Iggy’s forehead crinkled, his face contorting with annoyance, Max shook his head again. He had promised Helen he wouldn’t leave her.

Iggy shrugged off Max’s reluctance to exit the room and continued. “What do you say, Helen? Maybe you and I can talk a little bit about what’s going on?”

She could hear the chair rock gently beside her as Max’s fidgeting began. She could hear Iggy taping the nail of his left thumb against the underside of his wedding band. She could hear a phone ringing at the nurses’ station, the footsteps of an orderly coming down the hall, and the rhythmic rise and fall of Luna’s chest. She could hear her own heartbeat thumping wildly, and the hitch in her throat as she tried to speak.

“It’s okay if you don't want to talk, Helen. If you’re not ready--”

“Max,” Iggy interjected, but the medical director ignored him.

“We can sit here all day and not say another word if that’s what you want.”

Helen sighed - with her voice damaged it was becoming her default mode of expression. This time, however, it wasn’t a sigh of sadness or confusion, but one of realization. She had told herself that morning that Max would know she needed time; that he would somehow sense what would aid in her healing and do everything in his power to make it available to her. She had told herself that unlike Shin, unlike the rest of her friends and colleagues Max would understand. But she suddenly recognized that understanding was going to come at a price. _He’s not ready for me to talk about it._

He would sit in that chair all day if she asked him to - maybe even if she didn’t - but he wasn’t ready to hear her talk about what happened. She couldn’t blame him; she wasn’t sure she was ready herself. But as Max and Iggy waged a war over her, giving each other looks and volleying scoffs back and forth, Helen found herself growing disappointed in the man she’d turned back for - the man who changed her Thursday night plans.

There was going to come a time when she would want to scream as loud as her bruised larynx would allow, a time she would need to throw glass against the wall just to hear it shatter, a time she would curse her own body for not obeying her fear, and a time she cried until she couldn’t see or speak or even breathe. _It’s always Max,_ she had told herself a few nights before… but in that instant she knew her attack, her pain was on the verge of being unintentionally hijacked.

She cleared her throat angrily, the gruff sound startling both men. Reaching down to her lap, to the place she’d left her trusty clipboard, Helen wrapped her bruised fingers around the pen and scribbled out a directive. She held the paper up and both Max and Iggy leaned in slightly to read it.

_Please leave._

Luna suddenly cried out, awakened from her nap. She thrust her tiny hands into the air and whimpered loudly. Max pushed himself away from the bed, away from the clipboard. He brought his hand to rest gently on Luna’s back and began rubbing in small circles, but the little girl was uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than her afternoon snack. Max shushed her, attempting to quiet her belly’s rumbling, but the crying continued.

“Max, how about we step outside?” Iggy said, already walking toward the medical director with his hand outstretched. But as if tied to the bed by an invisible tether, Max couldn't leave. He watched Helen close her eyes tightly, a tear slipping from the confines of her armour and rolling down her swollen cheek.

As Luna partially settled, her cries a little fainter, Iggy leaned closer to Max and whispered, “Come on, buddy. Let’s go.”

Max sighed and slowly stood up. “I’ll be back later,” he told her, as he reluctantly let Iggy lead him from the room. But as the glass door slide closed behind them, Max wrenched himself from Iggy’s gentle hold and stomped further down the hall. 

One hospital room away from Helen’s, beyond her line of sight, Max whirled around to face Iggy and hissed, “What’s going on?” Luna was startled by his tone and turned her body in his arms, her chubby cheeks red from rubbing against her father’s day-old scrubs.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Iggy said, reaching out for the little girl’s hand. She tightly gripped his index finger and giggled as he playfully moved it back and forth. Her eyes darted from side to side, a huge smile taking up the whole of her face.

Max raised an eyebrow, and Iggy knew he wasn’t going to get out of an awkward conversation simply by having a laugh with Luna. “She didn't want to talk, Iggy.”

“Says you.”

“Says her note. You were pushing her.”

“Max, I got out a total of five sentences in there. I wasn’t pushing. If anything you were…” Iggy let his words trail away as a group of nurses passed by the pair. Once he was sure they were out of earshot, he resumed his diagnosis in a quieter tone. “Look, I’m just not sure you’re the person to decide what’s best for Helen right now, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Max whispered back, as he too began to notice the flurry of activity in the hallway.

Iggy put his hand on Max’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “Who do you think Helen was asking to leave?”

Max stepped back, surprised by the notion that her message was meant only for him, not Iggy. “I know what you’re trying to say here, Iggy, but I just don’t think Helen would--”

Iggy cut him off. “It’s not about what you think Helen would or would not do, what she does or does not need. We have to give her the space to tell us that herself, right?”

Had he somehow silenced her? Max wondered. Thinking back on his decision to bring Luna to her room, the elevator ride down from the daycare, Max was certain it was because he couldn’t stand to be away from his daughter another second. He’d left her overnight, one of the few she’d ever spent without him, and the guilt was overwhelming. He had wanted to be with Helen, but Luna had to come first. Yet, as Iggy stared at him with his all-knowing eyes, Max considered whether Luna had been an adorable prop - the little girl used to not only cheer up his best friend, but save them both from the pain of having to relive the night she was brutalized… the night he wasn’t there for her.

 _Dammit,_ Max thought. _I’m doing it again._ Somehow, despite all his care and kindness and love, he was turning what happened to Helen into something that happened to him. Peering back into her room, he spied the pink flowers Shin had left behind and wondered if that simple gesture had been the way to go.

"I think you and this one here," Iggy said as he playfully poked Luna's stomach eliciting a happy squeal, "Should go get some lunch and then maybe some sleep."

Max shook his head. "I can't. Brantley's this close to letting me stay."

"And Operation Max Goes We Go is more than happy to hear it, buddy," Iggy began, as Max mouthed the word _what,_ "But something tells me Brantley's going to want you awake and alert for this job of yours, not passed out in a random stairwell."

"I have an office I can sleep in, Iggy. I mean, I would never pass out in a stairwell--"

Iggy verbally barreled over the medical director, one hand on his back leading him to the elevators. "Yes, sleep in your office. Don't let people tell you it's unprofessional. We all do it, right? But first feed this adorable creature, and yourself, okay?"

Before Max could argue, the three of them were standing at the elevators, a smudged and distorted reflection of blue scrubs next to corduroy pants and a sweater staring back at them. As the the ding cried out and the doors slid open to invite them inside, Iggy gave Max a gentle push. He then reached inside, his hand twisting around the edge of the open doors, and pressed the button for the first floor. Max knew he was being directed to the cafeteria, but he thrust his hand out to stop the doors from closing.

"Are you staying with her?" He asked, his voice dripping with worry. 

"Yeah, I'll be around if she needs me," Iggy assured him.

"What if you're with a patient or if--"

Iggy smiled. "Max, relax. Helen's my only patient today."

As the doors finally closed with a light thud, Max remembered that Saturday was Iggy's day off.


End file.
